When people hear that a national TV contestant fronts your band, they tend to assume big studios, large budgets, and an army of producers. The Whips flip that assumption on its head. Their new single “Together in Agony” was written by guitarist and co-vocalist Max Indiveri and tracked in a modest 10×10 bedroom studio, proof that emotional scale has very little to do with square footage.
From the first bars, you can tell “Together in Agony” is built on feel rather than expensive gloss. The opening section is sparse: voice up front, instrumentation tucked in like a nervous thought. As the song unfolds, parts enter with intention. The drums do not crash in all at once; they creep in like the moment you realize a relationship is in trouble. Indiveri has described the story behind the song as “the kind of relationship you know is breaking, but you’re still in it because you’re scared to start over,” and the production mirrors that confession.
You can easily picture the setup: drums treated carefully to avoid overwhelming the small room, a few well-placed mics, guitars tracked close and dry, maybe a modest interface and a laptop on a desk. Rather than fight the limits of the space, The Whips lean into them. Reverb is used sparingly so the vocal feels three feet away instead of floating in some imaginary arena. When the track finally swells toward its climax, the density comes from performance and arrangement rather than plug-in trickery.
There is a story here about how young bands learn through the internet and then push past it. Early on, The Whips made their name with TikTok and Instagram clips: call-and-response solos, funk detours, lightning-fast runs that showed off their chops between college classes. Those videos were essentially micro-production exercises. Tight framing, smart phone audio, performances that needed to land within seconds. One clip meant for friends hit a million views; another climbed to five million. With each post, they were subconsciously thinking like producers, trimming away anything that did not serve the moment.
“Together in Agony” feels like the payoff from that education. Instead of cramming every idea into three minutes, the band finally gives itself room to stretch. Singer-keyboardist Max Cooper, now coming off a four-chair turn on NBC’s The Voice and time on Team Michael Bublé, brings a level of control that meshes well with the home-recorded aesthetic. He knows how to sit on top of a mix without overpowering it, and you can hear the band building a sonic frame around that presence.
The Whips’ origin story helps explain the chemistry. Bassist Quinn Cosgrove and drummer Miles Patterson first plotted the band on a Kansas City school bus, soon adding Indiveri and later Cooper through an Instagram search. That combination of long-term friendship and online discovery filters into the way they record. There is an ease in the pocket, a shared sense of when to lay back and when to push. Even within the constraints of a small bedroom, you can hear musicians listening hard to one another.
https://www.thewhipsband.com
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-whips/1546124754
https://www.instagram.com/thewhipsofficial
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2kfj2d46sKv28gRpl_-vw
