167

Warpaint & Rewards played The Studio @ Webster Hall (pics)

photos by Andrew St. Clair

Warpaint

If you’re wondering why Los Angeles buzz band Warpaint has been around for almost seven years with only two releases to show for it, blame Shannyn Sossamon.

The actress and model, who’s probably best known for starring alongside Heath Ledger in the 2001 film “A Knight’s Tale,” was the founding drummer for the psych-tinged experimental art-rock quartet back in 2004. When she left a year later, it threw the other band members for a loop.

“I think that’s largely why it took us so long to get to the point where we recorded an EP,” says the band’s guitarist and singer, Theresa Wayman, by phone from London’s K West Hotel and Spa during a tour stop. “We disbanded after she left. We disbanded for, like, a year. And then we got back together as a threesome and had to spend a lot of time navigating our way through the songs and writing new ones, because some of the songs couldn’t be played if they were any of the songs that she played drums on.”

Eventually, Wayman, guitarist/vocalist Emily Kokal and bassist/vocalist Jenny Lee Lindberg (who is also Sossamon’s sister) regrouped with Wayman as the drummer. Then, Sossamon reappeared. So, in 2007, the band made another go at being a quartet and set out to record a debut EP, “Exquisite Corpse,” which was released in 2008 to great reviews and impressive sales.

“And then [Shannyn] left again, halfway through the recording of the EP,” laments Wayman.

But the story has a happy ending: The band eventually recruited a new drummer, Stella Mozgawa, and put together a full-length debut, “The Fool,” which dropped in October. -[Express Night Out]

Warpaint, now stronger than ever now, is currently on tour with Rewards (aka Aaron Pfenning of Chairlift). The pair played the Studio at Webster Hall last night, 12/1, to a sold out crowd and to MTV’s cameras. The show will be available online at MTV’s site in a about a week. And they do it again tonight at the sold-out Music Hall of Williamsburg.

More pictures from The Studio below…

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Rewards

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint

Warpaint