Floodwater Angel Q&A
By Tosin Faseemo
Floodwater Angel is a St. Paul-based psychedelic glam band. It is composed of vocalist Madeline Knorr, bassist Dillon LaFollette-James, guitarist Jack Squier, and drummer Sam Tudor. Keep reading to find out about their musical inspirations.
Q: Your band name is really pretty; is there a meaning behind it?
D: When we were picking a band name, we were just throwing a bunch of words around. We really wanted floodwater to be involved. We had this cool idea of ’floodwater angel’ because of that classic painting imagery where someone is drowning in a flood and they look up and see an angel there about to rescue them. We wanted our band to be in a moshpit of ‘floodwater’ with us as the angels.
Q: How did you all meet?
M: I met Sam in orchestra my freshman year. We were both violinists. Then I was friends with a previous guitarist we had who brought in Dillon. We met our current guitarist at a show.
D: Jack opened for us as a solo artist, and we were so impressed. We were like, “do you want to play with us?” and Jack said. “Hell yeah.”
Q: How would you describe your genre of music?
D: In the good year of 2020, genre doesn’t really matter. We decided that psychedelic rock is a good genre to call ourselves because there are so many different types of psychedelic rock bands. We have a country rock song, we do some glam stuff, we have some classic rock music. We just stick with that psych rock genre because it lets us be more free with what we’re doing.
Q: Are all of you originally from Minneapolis?
M: I am from La Crosse, Wisconsin. I moved up here three years ago for school.
S: I am originally from South Minneapolis, but I grew up in a tiny town about an hour south of here called Wanamingo.
D: I’m from San Jose, California, but I moved to Minnesota in 2002 or so. I lived in Anoka from then until a couple of years ago, when I moved here.
Q: Is there anything you specifically like about the Minneapolis music scene?
S: Everytime I think I have a good grasp on the bands that are around, or playing shows, I always find a whole bunch of artists that I’ve never heard of before. It’s just such a large pool of really talented people.
M: I think what’s really cool about Minneapolis is all the different types of venues there are. I feel like there’s a flourishing underground scene in Minneapolis, which is different from other cities.
Q: Do you prefer house show venues?
D: We like playing in front of as many rowdy people as we can possibly get; usually that’d be at a house show. We can’t stand when our audiences aren’t getting into it. We usually get more rambunctious people at a house show. But we’ve also had great venue shows, like at 7th Street, where we had a bunch of people come out; it’s not so much about the stage. It’s more about the people.
S: The thing I really love about house shows is that you’re so connected to the crowd. I mean, they’re literally two feet away. It’s really cool.
M: I think house shows are just much more accessible, for a lot of people. If we have three shows in a weekend, it’s nice if they’re at a house because they’re definitely less expensive. It’s really nice.
Q: What approach do you guys take with live performances?
D: Our approach is to be as huge and wild as we can be. We have lights and smoke machines that we work with. We have used TVs to show videos in the past. Our approach is always to be the only thing in a venue you can possibly look at, to have nothing else be distracting.
Q: If each of you had to pick a musical inspiration, who would it be?
M: The Grateful Dead. They’ve been a huge part of my musical taste. I definitely try to model some of my solo work off of some of the things they’ve done.
S: Musically, my inspiration would have to be Queen. They have such an eclectic music taste, which I think is really cool.
D: One of my biggest influences has been the recent reunion with My Chemical Romance.