Despite living in the Bay Area for most of his adult life, Van Pierszalowski, leader of local pop rock band WATERS, has never been to Outside Lands. Instead, he's spent most of his summers touring or on a boat in Alaska salmon fishing with his father.
Pierszalowski was the commercial fishing crew's skiff man, meaning he'd hop in a smaller boat and guide it a quarter-mile from the coast, dragging a net also attached to the main boat, helmed by his father.
"[The skiff man] is in charge of positioning the nets in the best way we can, to factor in the tide and the wind and where we think the fish are," Pierszalowski said. "It's also about creating a hook — a shape in the net that traps the fish in. It's less physical labor and more mental precision. You just have to have a pretty good understanding of the tide and the wind."
Pierszalowski also created plenty of hooks on WATERS' new album, What's Real, which provides fertile ground for earworm-y tracks like "I Feel Everything" and the early-Weezer-sounding single "Got to My Head." The album's title track, "What's Real," has — like the band's overall aesthetic — a nostalgic '90s vibe. Some bands familiar with crowded, alcohol-soaked clubs crumble under the pressure of a big outdoor gig, but WATERS has a captain at the helm who's ready and willing to tackle the landscape.
"The sound is always a little more challenging, but I've always just loved everything about playing outside," Pierszalowski said. "I'm used to spending all summer outside, the entire day basically (outside of a few precious hours of sleep)."
Pierszalowski formed WATERS in Oslo, Norway in 2011 after his previous band, Port O'Brien, broke up. But after a bit of soul-searching, the band found a new home (and lineup) in San Francisco. This weekend, the band makes its debut at the Bay Area's biggest music festival.
WATERS will play on the festival's smaller Panhandle stage. We'll see how many fans streaming to and from the bigger stages Pierszalowski and crew can bring on board.
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