A Q&A With The Whips Singer Aidan Connelly

Photo by Ty Browning. 

Learn more about The Whips and their upcoming performance at the Roxy from one of the band’s singers, junior Aidan Connelly.

Q: When is the performance at the Roxy?

A: Wednesday, Nov. 21.

Q: How long are you playing for?

A: We are playing for two hours from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Q: How did this event come about?

A: A few months ago we did a battle of the bands deal at the Roxy, and we didn’t end up winning. We made it to the second round, but the guy who owns the Roxy and runs all the music stuff, he contacted us and asked us to come and play another show.It’s just a two hour set.

Q: How long has the Whips been a band?

A: Two and a half years — we started it around the end of 8th grade, right around the summer before freshman year.

Q: Are there any special songs you guys are saving for this performance or anything different that you have never done before?

A: Yeah, there’s a whole slate of new songs that we’ve never performed before, like do you know the song Kiwi by Harry Styles? We’ll be doing that one, which we’ve never done before, so that will be fun.

Q: Are you nervous?

A: No, I’d only be nervous if the day of something went wrong, or like if I woke up and lost my voice.

Q: When was the last time you guys acquired a new member?

A: Anna McQueeny was the most recent addition to the band and that was back in August.

Q: Are you guys practicing a lot as the day gets closer?

A: We’re trying to, it’s hard to schedule practices with all of us because four out of the six of us have jobs and a lot of us do extracurricular activities.

Q: What’s your favorite part about performing in front of other people?

A: My favorite part about performing in front of other people is just the fact that I get to do what I like, it doesn’t matter that there’s a bunch of people there. I like singing and getting to do it in front of other people, and doing it well hopefully. It makes me happy.

Q: What does each person do?

A: I sing, Anna sings, Max plays guitar, piano and does backup vocals, Miles plays drums and he can play piano, Quinn plays bass and Vincent plays guitar.

Q: Do you ever meet new people at shows?

A: Yeah, we’ve met a lot of cool people. The last show we played was just this little block party down on Oxford road off the Village and this guy, who just happened to be there, he came up to us afterwards, and he was like I want to work with you guys. So we had a meeting with him a few weeks ago and now he’s designing a website for us. He’s helping us land gigs. He was at the Ben Rector concert and talked to the tour manager, and he’s networking for us, so now the tour manager for the Ben Rector tour knows who we are.