Even after returning to Nashville, the band still credits its formative Ohio roots with shaping its sound.
Baby Wave is returning to the area to play the Dayton Valentine’s Show alongside Total Wife, Wujeria and Abel. DJs Dr. Smooch and Lovebody will also perform. The show is Thursday, Feb. 12, at SideDoor at the Brightside, 905 E. Third St. It is presented by In Memoriam.
“We were maybe a little intimidated to start our band in Nashville, because there’s a lot of great musicians here,” said Jake Bibb, multi-instrumentalist who shares vocal duties with book. “When we went to Athens, it was just energetic. Everyone was pretty excited and relatively unencumbered to get moving at a show. Ohio University’s there. College is a place where people get out of their hometown for the first time and start letting loose.”
In Nashville, it is difficult to avoid people with any degree of separation from the music industry. If it’s not a musician playing to other musicians, it is a musician playing to people closely tied to the arts. With that in mind — and energized by the response to its first show — Baby Wave signed a four-month lease on a house in Athens, using it as a home base to write songs.
After four months of writing, performing and a good bit of partying, the band decided to move back home.
Within a month of returning to Nashville, Baby Wave released the first single from its 2023 EP, “You Me &.” At least three songs from the EP — “NOHIO,” “Road Trip!” and “Car??” — reflect the band’s time in Athens, with lyrics centered on movement toward something greater.
“We really had a spark before we moved to Ohio about what the band could be and what we thought it was,” Bibb said. “Just how awesome it felt before anything even happened just felt right. It’s kind of about this idealistic feeling of being able to get to the best version of yourself with this group of people.”
In “Car??,” Bibb says goodbye to a Honda Civic hatchback. “Road Trip!” maintains a fun, romantic — and possibly ironic — vision of the American highway, as seen through scratched-up aviators. And with “NOHIO,” the goodbye may be the deepest lie of all.
Baby Wave first identified as a shoegaze band — fragile and distorted, in the vein of Wednesday — but has since moved toward alternative rock in an attempt to reclaim the label from its broad, modern definition.
“I think shoegaze is just over,” Bibb said. “It’s used to describe things that are alternative rock now. If someone hears a distorted guitar, the odds that they’re going to call it shoegaze are pretty high.”
The band could also be described as lo-fi rock, due to its incidental tape hiss, though the records are mostly recorded digitally. Its pragmatic recording setup contributes to the lo-fi sound.
“The goal, up until finishing this upcoming album, has been to make sick, hi-fi rock records,” Bibb said. “We were just making what we could this whole time. We’ve been trying to make good records and doing what we can with what we got.”
In 2024, Baby Wave released “still life,” a collaboration EP with fellow Nashville act Total Wife. The three-song release merged the bands’ sounds, landing in ambient, noisy and industrial territory. A mutual admiration — and shared shows and tours — led to the collaboration.
Baby Wave’s next release is due later this year, pending label support or a DIY rollout.
Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: The Dayton Valentine’s Show, with Baby Wave, Total Wife, Abel, Wujeria and DJs Dr. Smooch and Lovebody
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 12
Where: SideDoor at the Brightside, 905 E. Third St., Dayton
Cost: $10 presale, $12 at the door
Tickets: thebrightsidedayton.com
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