Ryan Kearns (Ryan Kearns): What motivated Bree and The Whatevers to form?
Bree Klauser (Bree): It all began when a hairstylist in the East Village contacted me when I was performing in a gay club about co-writing and recording dance-pop songs. I’d been performing for a long time and had strong jazz and musical theater background, but I’d never thought about writing my songs. That little encounter gave me my initial experience of how rewarding it was to compose, play, and produce my original songs. Following the completion of that work, I moved around with a few colleagues for a year or so, making music that was far more indicative of my jazz roots and perhaps the 1970s composition techniques received through absorption from my mother’s music interests.
The music improved when I performed these tracks at restaurants and various off-the-beaten-path locations around the city. Still, the collaborators quickly drifted away, and I found myself beginning over numerous times. I eventually came to my wits and focused on my excellent friends and, most significantly, my family, notably my great musician brother Matthew Klauser, with whom I had shared my life for almost 14 years.
