By Sean
"It's always been my biggest dream to tour with my brother. I love to watch him (play) every night. Everybody is pretty much friends. It's not just me and my brother. A lot of us knew each other."
Fan: You have a brother in The Calling, right?
Sean: [confused look] Nope.
"Hey guys! What's up all you street teamers, this is Sean from the band Lifehouse. Umm, we're chillin' here in Norfolk Virginia, um, being exposed to some quite chilly weather I must say. Umm, there was actually snow yesterday in Ohio. Snow. I haven't seen snow in months. YEARS maybe. Anywho, umm...yep yep, just wanted to say thank you to all of you guys fer all of your help in the, uh, successful promotion of the album Stanley Climbfall, it seems to be going really well. Uhh, and uhh, hopefully you all will have a joyous Christmas season and a New Years. I'll be spending in the beautiful state of Arizona, where it will no doubt be warmer than Virginia. Umm, hopefully you all will spend some quality time with loved ones. And umm, cool. Thanks everybody, bye."
-Christmas 2002 audio message
Lifehouse drummer Rick Woolstenhulme's brother Sean - until two months ago a member of The Calling. "I wasn't super-happy with the situation I was in," explains Sean. "I didn't feel challenged, and I didn't feel like I had a voice, musically. Lifehouse is a chance to be more creative and play music that I feel I can conncet to. If I'm not able to put some of myself into it, then I can't survive."
Like Jason [Wade], Sean was not a fan of learning other people's guitar parts. "When you first start learning to play, you copy a lot of people," he says. "But I never really worked out other people's solos. It's kinda pointless. I like to listen to things and understand them. You hear something, but create something of your own."
"With the older stuff, even if someone does have the same year, the exact same model guitar, it's going to sound completely different depening on who played it for the last 40 years, and what they did to it. You can line up four different 1960s Vox amps and they sound completely different. Some of them will sound amazing and some need to die."
"I'm using a lot of pedals on this. I'm not really a pedal-guru - I'm more into amps and guitar sounds - but I am using a lot of pedals right now."
"It's amazing how much somebody doing their thing and playing power chords can influence you. He played with so much balls... I like the fact that he didn't really care. he just did it because it sounded cool."
-on Kurt Cobain
"Sometimes you just have to stop thinking about stuff. I know that when I get 'heady' I play horrible. When you realize and listen to what you hear as opposed to what you know, it's like a whole other world."
Sean doesn't miss the guitar solo. "You get sick of hearing people meander, y'know? It's like 'Thank you - that's great that you can play that. But nobody really cares.'"
"It's a beautiful, beautiful place; we don't get trees in Los Angeles."
-on Arkansas
"Work hard and keep it honest. Don't let anybody make you do something that you don?t think is right for yourself or your music."
-on up and coming musicians
"My whole life was baseball up until a couple of years ago. As I started playing music more and more, I got better and better and it took over and became my priority."
"Rick's probably my best friend. I don't get to see him as much as I would like, but see him a lot more now than I would if we were on separate tours."
-when Lifehouse and The Calling toured in the fall of 2001
"Now that I look back on it, I find it hard to believe that [my parents] didn't have a problem with it because what are the odds that you'll go to L.A. and be successful in something like this? I'm glad they were so supportive."
Q: Is there a single band that inspires you all to do your best on stage?
Sean: Captain Leach and the Shrimp Shack Shooters.
Q: How do you like being in Lifehouse, and what song were you most excited to perform with them?
Sean: It's pretty fun, I like playing that one song the one with the guitar, I can't remember.
Q: Do you ever listen to your own albums? What are your favorites from both?
Sean: I listen to it on occasion; I really enjoy "Sky Is Falling" and the "Ketchup" song.
Q: Do you have anything you want to ask us fans?
Sean: Do you think that the red shirt I wore was too goofy? I kind of think so.
Q: If you could have a dinner party for 6 people, alive or dead whom would you invite?
Sean: Ignatius J. Reilly, Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and D'Artagnan
"Yo wud up. This is Sean in the dizale [more uncoherent Snoop Dogg talk] poppin the strizzings on my guizitar! [laughs] Anywho, I'm sittin' here with Serge and we're just chillin backstage at Kansas, Kansas City that is. And uh, we're listening to Uncle Kracker on stage, he's pretty cool. Actually he's REALLY cool. Um, we're just chillin and we're gonna go to uh Virginia tomorrow morning and play at the Norva, which is gonna be pretty cool. And um, right on, right on. See ya everybody."
-Street Team Message (12.10.02)
"Hey everyone...We're U2!"
-at the After Five Live at The Rave on March 27, 2003
Walter also expresses confidence in his band, drummer Head and guitarist Woolstenhulme, who’ll be going out on tour with him, and have played with him for several years. Woolstenhulme, a fellow music conservatory grad who has toured with both Lifehouse and The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex while counting iconoclasts Bill Frisell and Thelonious Monk among his favorites, was drawn to Walter’s compositional ambition. “This is definitely a band.
What’s great about playing with Abandoned Pools is how it allows me to use a wide palette of sounds,” he says. “The music can be as offensive or as pretty as you want. It covers the entire spectrum of rock. The possibilities are endless. There’s a meaning and purpose to it, as well as a system behind it… which makes it more of a challenge to play.”
-on Abandoned Pools
By Sean and Others
Jason Wade: We've been eating sub-way, which is pretty American.
Interviewer: Ok, cool!
Sean: What do you put that [vegemite] on, toast or something?
Interviewer: Yeah, we put it on toast.
Sean: It looks like chocolate, right?
Interviewer: It looks like chocolate.
Sean: It looks like poopy.
As they prepare for their performance, bassist Sergio Andrade reflects on how their audience has changed over the years. "We kind of started with a female [fan] base, and it grew to a male fan base, and then to a mixed crowd." Rick interrupts, "Well, actually, first it was female and then it changed to hermaphrodites." The band erupts in laughter. "Yeah, that was weird." Sean interrupts, "Wait, what's a hermaphrodite?" "They have both, um, tools if you will," older brother explains.
Alex Band (The Calling) is video taping.
Sean: Man, I wish I had a camera.
Alex: I'm taping this, stupid.
Sean: Can I have a copy?
Alex: My camera is your camera, man.
Rick: I used to tickle my brother so hard he'd take a dump in his pants!
Host: Is this true?
Sean: Ssshhh!
Host: How old were you?
Rick: He was like 19!
Sean: I was little OK...I was little enough to have dumped my pants!
Rick: We would fight everyday. Those were good fights.
Sean: Yeah right! He'd hit me and I'd start to cry...and then he'd be like "Dude, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Then I'd stop crying and he'd hit me again! It was a vicious cycle.
By Others
"The odds are crazy - I don't know how it worked out. Me and my brother are just over-the-top persistent and we both knew what we wanted to do. You've got to have a ton of fire and some talent, so we just went after it."
-Rick on how Sean and him succeded
"They showed interest in music even as babies. They'd sit in their baby car seats in the back seat and move their hands and feet to the rhythm of music."
-Sean's mom on Rick and him
"He came home one day during his senior year and said he wanted to pursue music. None of us knew he was serious about it at all. It was a surprise to all of us."
-Sean's mom
"It's the hardest thing I've ever been through in my entire life because we're so close. I would walk by their bedrooms and just cry. When they left, my world was gone."
-Sean's mom on Rick and him leaving home to pursue careers
"We've jammed together but have never been in a band together. We're going to jump on that the next time we both have a break, and we've already got the other players together."
-Rick in the fall of 2001
"We must have auditioned 100 guys. We couldn't find someone that we connected with that could actually add something unique and different. But then we thought of Sean."
-Jason
"After Sean left the band, we would joke in interviews that we had to get rid of him because of his huge drug problem. Anyone who new Sean thought that was pretty funny, cause he won't even take a sip of beer, let alone do anything remotely close to drugs. I guess that interviewer took what we said to be serious even though we were clearly joking and printed it in their paper. Aaron and I might take a zanax here or there on a scary plane flight, but that's about as close we get to drugs. My little body couldn't take any drugs anyway."
-Alex Band (The Calling)
"I think Sean and I are known to be the kings of naps. We could probably take a nap anywhere we are and at whatever time we feel like. I know some of you are big sleepers too, but never as big as us, we are really big sleepers."
-Sergio Andrade
"He is the most wonderful, honest, cheerful and loving son that a mom could have.
Rick and Sean have worked so very hard and I am proud of what they have accomplished. They are both well rounded guys who have dedicated their lives to the love of music.
The boys are very ecclectic when it comes to what they listen to, anywhere from Country to Classical, Jazz to Reggae.
I speak with them at least every other day. Sean and I are super super close. Ricky and I confide in each other all the time. Sean is the loving, warm one, and Ricky is the macho, hard bodied personality. They're both very loving and sensitive kids. They really care about my feelings and how I'm treated. Sean has always watched out for both of us parents. It's been a joy that the Lord brought into my life, two little blessings. They have been precious since Day 1.
They were of course the cutest kids in the world! As any mom says. I would blow dry their hair every morning, and ironed all of their outfits. I was a bit too clean with them, but thank goodness, they turned out to be very healthy NORMAL men."
-Sean's mom
Interviewer: Sean, you're the new boy on the block. And you're Rick's brother, the drummer.
Sean: That I am.
I: Are they treating to well? Have you fit in well?
S: For the most part. Occasional lashings, beatings.
Jason: And uh, he travels in the bottom of the bus with the gear but...
S: It's just something you gotta do.
J: That's the 2-month initiation process. He's gonna make his way up to a bunk eventually.
I: He's on bed-making duty, picking up clothes... That's fantastic. But you're enjoying it, of course, working with your brother as well, is that going ok?
S: Yeah pretty much, we get along for the most part.
-From The Edge interview in New Zealand on October 14, 2002.
Interviewer: You could always find a hot-looking band to tour with,
Michelle Branch: I tried that too. [laughs] It didn't really work. I was on tour with The Calling and was seeing the guitar player, Sean [Woolstenhulme], who was great?nothing wrong with him. But I'd get back to my hotel room and he'd be like, "Let's hang out." And I'd be like, "Dude, you have to chill." I didn't want to hang out with anyone. But I've matured a lot.
-From the June 2003 issue of Spin magazine.
"Enter Sean Wulstenhulme. 22 yr old guitar god from Arizona. From the first note Sean played I knew he was our guy. I basically told him that I didn't want a conventional guitar approach and let him go. At once he exhibited a thoughtful, mature, sound usually reserved for people twice his age. His angular guitar playing was exactly what I had been hearing in my head. I told Sean that we had about four days and then we were going into the studio. Without batting an eye he said "cool, show me the songs". Over the next four days what Sean brought to the music was incredible. His approach to the instrument was innovative, if not profound. The music that Billy and I had written spanned a lot of genres and Sean was able to adapt whether it be the prog-rock changes of Ode to Darryl or Streetcrawler or the poppiness of Love is Real or the trance vibe of Green Buffaloes."
-Jimmy Chamberlin
"[A]s some of you already know, Sean has left The Complex. He has commitments elsewhere and we wish him much success in his new endeavor. I have known from the start that at some point he would be leaving to join the band he was contracted to. We don't believe in contracts in The Complex. We believe in the power of music to seal the deal. I'm sure we will work together at some point in the future and I am glad that Sean is keeping his word and fulfilling his obligation( a rare thing in L.A. these days!) ."
-Jimmy Chamberlin
“Dangerous Game” is the album’s most chilling track. It begins with a solitary Madden fingering a nylon string guitar. In the song’s progression, he’s eventually accompanied by Jimmy Chamberlin Complex/Abandoned Pools alumnus, Sean Woolstenhulme, whose sublime mayhem on electric guitar evokes an explosive hell realm of Fallujah-esque sound and imagery. By the end of the sonic assault, there is little doubt, the fuse has been lit with no easy way out.
-Rajiv Singh
