Welcome to The Worry Club
Photography by Michael Salisbury
“I love movies —so whenever I sit down to write a song, I always think about my favorite movies that I've watched recently,” says Chase Walsh, aka Worry Club. We were about midway through our Zoom interview when we veered off on a brief tangent discussing Chase’s admiration and passion for film. We got to talk about how stellar the soundtrack of the 2011 action/crime drama Drive is, how he could never get tired of his favorite movie Garden State —no matter how many times he’s watched it—and even how he’ll sometimes pick an actor/director (say Robert DiNero or Martin Scorsese) and go through their filmography to spot any signatures of their respective crafts. “It's like listening to your favorite artist. You can kind of pick those things out that they always do.”
Much like his favorite actors and directors, Chase approaches the music he makes as Worry Club with a signature of his own: striking guitar riffs that effortlessly reel listeners into his songs and, of course, the unmistakable “Worry Club vocal.” Two separate voice recordings playing back simultaneously give his lyrics an amplifying effect, as if another person is singing alongside him on each track.
While Chase fronts as a solo act, he humbly identifies the Worry Club moniker as a collaborative project made possible by the handful of friends who participate in it and the community they’ve fostered around it. With momentum on their side following last year’s handful of sublime singles, a few live performances in the books, and their team’s commitment to fostering community online, Chase and friends are ready to propel the Worry Club project to new heights in 2022 with the release of his second EP this Spring.
“We're thinking like March, like late March, is when [the EP] is going to come out. We have one more single to put out from it, and I will say that ‘Vince Vaughn’ is on the EP,” says Chase with a bright and confident smile as we continue to discuss his unreleased sophomore project. “I'm a big fan of cohesion, so in order to put ‘Vince Vaughn’ on that EP I feel like I needed to make it fit. So there is other really weird stuff on that EP mixed with like classic Worry Club stuff.”
Revisit Worry Club’s discography, and you’ll find many of his records exude a degree of nostalgia that clearly stems from the music Chase grew up on. He first credits his father in influencing his musical interests from the records he was exposed to at a young age, playfully describing his dad’s taste as “insanity” for the extensive spectrum of genres and artists he listened to. From hearing rock bands for the first time in the back seat of the car to being put onto some of his favorite artists like Rage Against the Machine through video game jam sessions on Guitar Hero, it was only a matter of time before Chase started to take his interest in music to new depths.
Midwest emo, indie, grunge and pop-rock are among a handful of discernible subgenres listeners can recognize both sonically and lyrically on Worry Club tracks. His music has familiar elements for fans of those sounds while simultaneously giving listeners something fresh and experimental.
“I think it's really important to break up [patterns of sound] especially when you're only releasing singles. It's super important to not only build as an artist and develop a new sound, but also just like throw a wrench in [your discography], like a really weird [song], just cause you can.”
These outliers of singles didn’t quite surface for Worry Club until late-summer of 2020. Earlier that year, his debut EP, Chase’s Hands, and single, “In My Ear,” introduced Worry Club as a newer act whose tracks followed themes of musing heartbreak and angst molded by steady guitar licks, riveting melodies and glum vocal tones. It wasn’t until he released the standout track “Japanese,” that listeners were dealt a snappier, more zestful tune that perfectly meshed the Worry Club vocal with punchier drums and electrifying guitar riffs without ever losing the melancholic ambiance Chase’s music emits.
Even as Chase began to approach his music with noticeably more of an experimental lens on tracks like “Work Out,” “Money,” and “Jonesin’,” and evidently doubled down on this style on “Vince Vaughn” and his most recent offering, “Pretty Face,” the anchoring themes of his music never waned. If anything, they only became stronger.
“Doing that kind of vocal manipulation when I'm in, like in the act of recording, I feel like I can say anything and I feel like I can be super vulnerable when it doesn't sound like me. So that was also really fun to mess with and just kind of like let it all out because it doesn't sound anything like me and people who don't know Worry Club or listen to the song. They're like, ‘Damn, [this song] is really heavy.’ It just feels good, and then it just kind of explodes at the end […] I feel like that's also a Worry Club signature.”
While the music Chase releases as Worry Club is a defining aspect of the project, he reminds us that Worry Club is more than just his music. A primary reason it exists is to foster community and collaboration both in and outside the project. When looking at those who have helped grow Worry Club internally, Chase credits his friend Jake (management) and girlfriend Angie (stylist and, as Chase gratefully adds, his “biggest critic”) as two individuals who continue to play important roles in shaping Worry Club as the collective project it is. He also shouts out friend Zach Zagula, a multidisciplinary graphic designer who has been with Chase since the very start of the project in 2019 and takes on the role of creative director for Worry Club.
Through Instagram and Discord, Chase and friends host weekly sessions inviting fans and other artists/musicians in the community to connect with one another. Their “Worry Club Wednesdays” on Instagram Live act as a space for fans to come together and share music they’re listening to with Chase, ask questions they have via the chat feature and walk away from the session with an updated link to a collaborative playlist they’ve all put together during the hour-long call. On the other hand, Worry Club’s Discord video chats tend to be more of a loose hang between participants. Chase isn’t as much of a moderator on these calls as he is on IG Live but instead takes on more of a participating role. The conversations Worry Club hosts on Discord have become a space where other artists and creatives oftentimes share their work, exchange ideas and celebrate one another. For Chase, this is the embodiment of what he ideally hopes the Worry Club project exists as beyond his music.
“Music kind of like, at least my kind of music, I think brings a certain crowd, which is musicians. People who are doing the exact same thing [as me]. And from early on with Worry Club, I wanted to be able to show people that you can [make music] out of your bedroom […] Once you learn to do it by yourself and you're like your own machine, it's awesome. I think showing other people that, and also seeing other people do it, fuels me as well.”
Since its start nearly three years ago, Chase, Zach, Jake and Angie have connected with thousands of fans under their collective efforts as Worry Club. As the project is anchored in their devotion to community and the music Chase releases, Worry Club’s trajectory of success and reverence within the music community is undoubtedly promising. For now, those familiar and new to Worry Club can join in on Worry Club Wednesdays and presave “Lately” (dropping March 3rd) off his upcoming EP set to release in the weeks ahead.
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