An interview with "Wake Up" frontman Evan Mui

Wake Up has gone through a few lineups as life happened and members went in different directions. The current lineup is Evan Mui on guitar, Jason Medina on guitar, and Jackson Wargo on bass. 

Mui uses music as a chance to indulge in the heaviness of creativity saying, "As far as the creative process goes, inspiration can be the most gratifying and elusive aspect." Wake Up tends to focus on recording rather than playing a ton of live shows. In that focus Wake Up has an LP titled California Left Turns that will be released soon. The album was set to be released last year but got put on pause due to Mui having other projects on the front burner. The band's goal is to get this album out this year. 

Raised on early 1990s radio, The Beatles, and skate videos Mui began to form his taste in music at an early age. He was encouraged by his father who had an old acoustic. Watching the movie Amadeus frequently as a child also sparked the idea of making his own music. After a high school experience filled with social anxiety, smoking weed, and making art Mui got his first 8-Track Foster, and he began recording and writing more. As he began to realize he could do every part of the music on his own he began viewing music as something he wanted to spend his life doing. Since this point, Mui has made lifelong friends and has been able to travel through music. 

Wake Up makes music that is nostalgic for those who loved college radio in the 1990s. Mui explained their music as nostalgic in a specific way, "[in the way] you can still recall from vaguely cinematic memories of the formative moment you and only you can feel, but could never communicate in an eloquent enough manner that anyone else could possibly understand." Wake Up is using music to communicate this difficult to convey brand of nostalgia. They play on the fact that music is truly the universal language. Even though the listener did not experience the same things the members of Wake Up have gone through the music still makes you feel like you shared those experiences.