Whether it be painting, drawing, photography, video, filmmaking, or music, there seems to be a determined commercial agenda to much of what we see out these days. At a time when many are selling a product rather than art, blame can be equally placed on corporate entities, social media platforms, and advertising campaigns that purchase the rights to beloved Pop Rock songs like Pilot’s 1974 hit “Magic” to morph them into weight loss drug themes. In truth, it can be a bit revolting if you are paying attention to everything happening, but fortunately, those who dare to be different, like UVWAYS.
A relatively new project created by former All Them Witches Drummer Robby Staebler, the band consists of himself, Pro Skater Evan Smith on vocals, and Elad Shapiro on bass. Put together with the assumption that anything goes in terms of musical expression as long as it sounds good, UVWAYS first emerged with the COVID quarantine period album Moses Lynx in 2020 before putting out Chasing The Rat in late 2024. Again, not married to any style, UVWAYS’s purpose is to be art first and marketable as a far second. Refreshing to see and even more interesting to hear, Robby Staebler took some time to chat about the dive into UVWAYS, his work with All Them Witches, plans to build more on his new project, plus much more.
Cryptic Rock – You have been involved in music and entertainment for some time now and have done some cool things. You were a part of All Them Witches for twelve years, and now you have a new project called UVWAYS. How would you describe your journey as a musician to this point?
Robby Staebler – Oh, man. It has been a long one, a fun one, and a self-discovery thing. I started playing music with an instrument when I was fifteen. I wasn’t able to put it down. The longer I did it, the more time I spent with it, the more excited I got about it, and the more fun I was having.
I figured out how to turn that into paying my bills and doing other artistic, creative things that I like, like photography, filming, and stuff like that. I just had to figure out a way to combine all that.
Cryptic Rock – That is fantastic. You cannot ask for anything more when you get to do something that you love to support yourself. Sometimes, it can ruin the artistic aspect, but if you are doing it on your own terms, that is the best way to do it.
Robby Staebler – Yeah. Totally, I agree.
Cryptic Rock – As I mentioned, you were a big part of All Them Witches. Now, you have branched out to start UVWAYS. Before we talk about the new project, what was your time in All Them Witches (ATW) like?
Robby Staebler – It was fun until the end when I quit. Weird, very uncool shit was happening. I got out of there. It wasn’t a good situation. A lot of people have made assumptions about why I’m not in the band anymore. Nobody really has an idea. If I were to actually give the story of the events that led to my departure, I don’t think people would be too keen on the band anymore. For now, I’ll just keep that close to the chest.
It was a good experience, though. It was a lot of work. It was a long time. We started that band at the end of 2011, and then we ended up putting our first record, Our Mother Electricity, in 2012. That was twelve years of going. I have seen a lot of places around the world multiple times, had some really good experiences, and grown as a drummer and an all-around person. I learned a lot about a lot of stuff doing that. I’m thankful for my time there. I wish it had gone differently, but it is what it is.
Cryptic Rock – Understood. Well, UVWAYS is a little bit of a different animal. Possessing a different sound, the UVWAYS put out the album Chasing The Rat in 2024. What has it been like working on this new project?
Robby Staebler – I started it in 2020 when everything shut down, and we couldn’t tour or anything. I had been building a studio in an old church so that ATW could work and do stuff. No one was very excited to come over and work except for me and a couple of my other friends. The UVWAYS thing started, and we put out Moses Lynx in 2020.
It was really just a bunch of sound checks as I was building the studio from hardly anything. I had hardly any equipment. All along the way, I was using it and was making demos and such. ATW didn’t want to do anything with any of those ideas. I just brought in a couple of friends. My friend Elad Shapiro, who makes Dale Amps, was right there helping me figure out how to do all this stuff. He’s an awesome engineer. I brought in my friend Evan Smith. He drove me from LA back to Nashville so we could do this record. The first record was just emailing tracks back and forth, trying to get a vibe from each other. It turned out to be pretty cool. We finished that album fast, and it was all random.
The second album, Chasing the Rat, was probably two and a half years of recording in random places when I could. I was on tour and doing stuff. Evan’s a pro skater, so he had touring and obligations.
So far, it’s been a really fun side project, but now it’s the main thing. I’ve been building out my studio a lot and working on stuff. I actually just finished mixing the next UVWAYS record recently, which is completely different from anything else we put out.
There’s a lot of stuff in the pipeline right now. We’re just trying to get our feet back on the ground, get my feet back on the ground, with people I’m working with so I can get back out there and get on tour.
Cryptic Rock – That is exciting to hear. UVWAYS is highly experimental in a lot of ways. It is even more experimental than what you were doing with All Them Witches. It seems like there are no boundaries as far as what you do. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?
Robby Staebler – Yeah. It really is. If it’s cool and we like it, I’ll put it out. I don’t care. There’s no box that it needs to live into. Chasing the Rat is pretty wide as far as what is on there. There’s Comedy on there and Electronic House shit on there in the spots. Then there’s a bunch of Psychedelic jamming. It is whatever it is.
This next album is even more experimental than that. There are no lyrics. It’s just non-stop fucking insane music. I’m actually really excited to put out the next one.
Cryptic Rock – That will be interesting to hear. Do you have an estimate of when it will come out?
Robby Staebler – It will be out by summertime. I don’t know when yet. I just have to figure that out. I need to master it and come up with a little bit of a plan for it. It exists, and it just needs to be mastered at this point. It’s wild.
Cryptic Rock – Very cool. Based on your experiences, would you say that this new project is one of the most challenging things you have done as a musician?
Robby Staebler – Yeah. It might be a little more challenging just in the sense that we’re all in different places, which we were for a while with the ATW. At certain points, we were all in the same place. With this, we really are all scattered across the country. It is a new thing. We’re kind of building it from the ground up. So, in that sense, it is challenging.
After twelve years in a band where everyone agrees to go on tour, write records, and you have a record deal, it ends up in a different place, and it does become easier. I do like the challenge. It’s a lot more fun. I’m having more fun with this than with recording and writing stuff with ATW. That got to be a really rushed thing where no one would really want to spend the time. Everything had to be done really fast. That was cool, and there’s always something that comes out of it. I’m on the two opposite ends of the spectrum now, though.
With ATW, we were writing and putting stuff out super fast when we would actually do it. We weren’t really leaving room or time to go back in, really change things, or come up with new ideas. It was like, “Hey, here’s an idea,” and the idea works. If it works, then it’s done.
With this, it’s more like this works, but it could be like this. The downside of that is it could end up taking a really long time, which it has for the Chasing the Rat stuff. That’s also a product of when I was on tour doing stuff with ATW and working on it at the same time. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the future. I still like that spirit of being able to just get in a room and do something, and it is what it is, and put that out. You have to really be open to experimentation with that sort of thing, which is the next album.
Cryptic Rock – It will be fascinating to see how it develops. You said you have all intentions of bringing UVWAYS out and playing these tracks live.
Robby Staebler – Oh, for sure. I don’t know which tracks we will play live, but this is definitely something that is going to be built to take on the road. It’s been a really crazy past handful of years. We’ll see what happens here. Everyday, I’m working on the UVWAYS stuff and trying to get it to the next level. We’re sitting on a ton of music that we’ve done over the years.
Every time we’d get together, we would just record non-stop. We have a lot of material, and we’re fishing through it. It’s cool, man. I’m excited.
Cryptic Rock – It sounds like a refreshing inspiration. What you guys are doing also sounds like a very democratic process. As you said, it takes a little longer, but it seems like everyone is involved.
Robby Staebler – Yeah. Everybody is involved. I’m kind of the ringleader here in putting things together, including making products, dealing with the vinyl, and all that stuff. I like doing that stuff. It gives me another job to do. I’m a busybody. I need to be doing stuff.
The UVWAYS stuff, we’re lucky because everyone is really stoked about it. We do something, and it’s unanimous. Everyone’s either into it or not. We really haven’t had any issues with, “No, I really want it to be this way,” and “No, it should be this way.” It’s just not like that. This is insane, or this sucks. It’s just one or the other. I don’t know if it’s Democratic or just lucky.
Cryptic Rock – Right. It seems like there’s chemistry going on between the band. That being said, you have worked with different people through the years. What has it been like working with this format, with these individuals like this?
Robby Staebler – It’s super laid back. I’m working with Elad, the bass player; he’s a psychopath. I’m a psychopath. The singer, Evan, he’s a psychopath. We’re all extreme in our own ways in the things we like to do. It just really works. We all want this. We all want to be doing this stuff. There’s a level of excitement with everybody else where it’s still the beginning.
Even though we started putting stuff out in 2020, it’s still the beginning because we haven’t played shows. We’ve just been slowly building things in our time. Now that I have left the other band, I’m driving this thing as hard as I can to see what it can be. Everyone is on the same page with that.
Cryptic Rock – Excellent. Well, as you said, it is still developing, but you have so much material already out there and so much more to come. It sounds like there is a lot of promise.
Robby Staebler – Yeah, there is. In my mind, there is for sure. We’ll see what happens out there in the world, but I have high hopes for sure.
Cryptic Rock – As we have spoken about, this is a very eclectic mix of music. You said it is going to become even more open with the next batch of songs you will be putting out. That being said, what are some of your influences as a musician?
Robby Staebler – All the old Rock stuff. I love Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd was probably an unhealthy obsession for a long time when I was a kid. I got into the Hard Rock, Metallica, and that kind of stuff. What’s always got me super excited is long-form, non-traditional stuff, just like 1970′s Bitches Brew (Miles Davis). When I heard Bitches Brew for the first time, that was insane.
Then early Santana, that stuff. These jams that go into places, and you don’t know where they’re going to go. The tones and the production of all that old music are a huge inspiration in itself. Listening to the way albums sound. Old Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, all that stuff, just the way it sounds, is something that I’m striving for.
The mainstream music scene is such a monoculture. It really just turns my stomach what is out there and what’s popular because I don’t like it. I don’t even think it comes from a healthy place; a lot of this stuff. I think a lot of this stuff that’s out there today is just coming from a commercial standpoint where everyone’s like, “It’s super-rich. We’ll float you a bunch of money, everyone’s going to get rich, and everyone’s going to think you’re the coolest person.” I think a lot of music these days is coming from that.
It used to come from your heart. It comes from your real feelings. It still does for some people and we’re leaning into that. That was always my inspiration, the way that it made me feel. All that stuff, that long-form, jammy, tripped-out stuff, just felt like home to me. I’m leaning into that.
Cryptic Rock – Right. What you are saying is that there is a lot of validity. There is a very large level of mainstream music that feels very contrived and hollow-sounding. It is not to say that artists are not talented. It seems like the recording techniques used and all the technology has made much of what you hear sound empty.
Robby Staebler – Yeah. It seems like everything’s a formula now. You listen to all this new Hip Hop or Rap, or whatever you want to call it, that comes out. It literally all sounds exactly the same. There’s no differentiation between this sound or that sound. The production is the same. Everyone’s got the same template and uses the same settings. That shit just sucks, dude. Modern Rock music, for the most part, is the same story. It’s just production. It all sounds the same. Everyone’s saying the same thing.
My girlfriend’s kids bring their friends over to the house. We recently got into a discussion about music, and they were talking about the lyrical content and this new Rap music and how good it is. I’m like, “All they’re talking about is doing Percocets, fucking chicks, and making money.” That’s the only thing anyone’s talking about. There’s no elevation. There’s no expanding your mind for a reason for self-discovery. It’s all hedonistic.
Cryptic Rock – Agreed. That is one compartment of modern music. With Rock, it seems everyone is mastering everything extremely loud. When you mention older Rock records from Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, they were dynamic. Most old Heavy Metal records were extremely dynamic. Now, everything is on the same level. It’s almost unbearable to listen to.
Robby Staebler – I completely agree. You need dynamics. Everyone’s doing the same thing. It’s just an assault on your brain, your eardrums. It’s not even fun to listen to. Yeah, loud and punchy can be exciting. I love loud and punchy, but you need something else there.
Cryptic Rock – Right. Most certainly. Then there is the auto-tuning, and it is absolutely horrendous.
Robby Staebler – It is terrible.
Cryptic Rock – Yes, it makes you wonder, where is the musicality?
Robby Staebler – There’s no musicality in it. It’s somebody who can’t sing at all and has nothing to say. The record company knows that they’re marketable, so they give them a bunch of money to own their souls. Then they give them an auto-tune and the same producer as everybody else. They all just make bird sounds into an auto-tuner and make tire-screeching noises.
Cryptic Rock – Unfortunately, this is very true. On a more positive note, we have some daring to be different. You are also into filmmaking, correct?
Robby Staebler – Yeah. I don’t know if you call it filmmaking. I got into film photography when I was a teenager. Got in the darkroom, started messing around with different formats of film, and I’ve never been able to put it down. There’s some sort of magic in shooting film, processing with chemicals, and doing that whole thing, man. There’s so much more latitude analog than there is with something digital. I was so obsessed with still film that I wanted to start editing videos for the band and doing music videos.
I got a few 16-millimeter cameras and just saw it as taking pictures. I’m just shooting film if you want to call it filmmaking. I’m not really doing a lot of stuff with stories. I just like images and putting images together. I love colors and movement. That’s really what I like. It’s just like a visual trip. I love messing with anything visual or audio.
Cryptic Rock- That is very interesting. Italian Horror films, like those from Dario Argento, are very much about color, movement, and shots like that rather than story. Have you ever seen any of his films?
Robby Staebler – Yeah. I’ve seen some. My girlfriend’s Italian and she always has to tell me that she’s Italian. Like I forget. She loves all that stuff. She went to film school, and she grew up on that stuff. She’s shown me some of that. I’m not really familiar with all of these things. She laughs at me. She’s like, “You really don’t know very much about any of this stuff, but you love doing it, and you’re good at it.” She teases me about that.
I’ve definitely seen some of that stuff. It’s bizarre. I can relate to that. If I were going to be in a section of the universe, in that sense, I would be veering in that lane, for sure.
Cryptic Rock – It is compelling. This is not just in the Horror genre when it comes to those types of films but in any genre. In a lot of older-era Italian films, there is almost a dream-like state. Another thing is that it seems like a modern film has lost its ability to create that kind of atmosphere. Nowadays, everything is so in-your-face and cut and dry. There is no room for imagination.
Robby Staebler – Exactly. Everything’s got to be you have your tits out. You got to be showing your ass. It’s the same with movies and music now. There is no real room for imagination. There might be a little more room for imagination in the film world. Still, pop culture movies, it’s just feel-good shit that you don’t have to think about.
I like seeing and hearing things that confuse me, and I have to be like, “Well, wait a second.” Then, you keep revisiting it. Maybe something that you couldn’t stand at first turns out really liking, which has happened to me many times.
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