'We're Duval all the way:' Jacksonville punk band Whole Wheat Bread announces new album

It's a blistering hot Saturday on an empty road behind Endangered Wise Men Recording Studios near King Street — but Aaron Abraham, Joseph Largen and Will Frazier are dressed in faux fur. The three men make up the latest iteration of Whole Wheat Bread — one of Jacksonville's most iconic contributions to punk rock.

A band made up of Black members playing punk music in the South two decades ago wasn't a common sight. Even now, progress when it comes to diversity in the music scene can be slow. Over the years, the members recall being both tokenized, underestimated and even presumed to be a gimmick.

"There have been several times when we've gone into venues and kind of been disregarded by staff if it was the first time we'd played there," Largen said. "They didn't know who we are. They had never seen us and they're just like, 'oh, who are these guys?'"

But charting albums, collaborations with members of both punk and hip hop royalty, international tours and a famous war cry — "Duuuuvaaaal" — that predates the Jaguars' use of the phase has helped cement the band's place in local history.

Still, it wasn't always an easy road.

Though they've been longtime friends living and working in Jacksonville — all attending local high schools (Abraham went to Englewood High, Largen went to Mandarin High and Frazier attended Douglas Anderson) — life happened. And by about 2017, Whole Wheat Bread was undergoing a sort of hiatus.

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Upcoming single "Pimpin'" was written 10 years ago

Two of the three current members are married with children. Abraham is in school to become an anesthesiologist. Frazier can often be found behind the bar at Bold City Brewery's downtown location, where he's worked as a manager since its opening.

But fans still wanted more, manager and studio owner Rick Grice said. The proof is in their streaming numbers.

"Since 2015 til February of this year, Whole Wheat Bread had like 5,000 monthly listeners on Spotify at most," he said. "Well, they just broke 40,000. It's crazy. So their audience is still there. And they want to hear it."

The band has sporadically done local shows over the years, including a massive 904 Day in 2019 with fellow locals, Evergreen Terrace. But this year, members announced a true comeback with newly released music. So far, the band has dropped two singles, "Eye For An Eye (Revenge)" and "Murder Rah Ha (Regret)," both of which were originally written and released on a 2016 EP but have since been reimagined.

The band's upcoming single, "Pimpin,'" is another vault track that Abraham wrote ten years ago but the band hadn't ever released. This summer, the trio came together to film a video for the track.

In many ways, it feels like a family reunion. Old and new collaborative partners with the band are devoting their weekend to making "Pimpin'" perfect.

Abraham, Largen and Frazier are posted up in a white Oldsmobile that says "THE BOSS" on its front plate. They've snuck some RYOBI portable fans out of the camera's view but it only goes so far. (In true dad form, Largen runs a DIY Dad YouTube channel and has a garage fully outfitted in RYOBI tools.)

The camera crew consists of longtime listeners.

"I found their CD in high school and went to an Orlando show," said videographer Chester Canlas. "Sixteen years later, I get a call to do a video shoot. Now, I'm filming for the band I grew up listening to."

The band expects to drop the single and its accompanying music video soon. In the meantime, we caught up with them to ask some questions.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Life, new music, touring and Duval pride

Can you talk about being Black and in the Jacksonville punk scene growing up? 

Abraham: It wasn't common. And I still don't think that it's common now. Even 20 years ago, even something like being associated with punk rock — like skateboarding — people may have looked at you funny or teased you for doing it. Now it's nothing to see a Black kid on a skateboard and playing guitar. But I think to see a punk rock band that's all Black is still not as common.

Largen: I remember going to shows back in the days of The Milk Bar and being scared because you didn't know if skinheads were gonna be there. You were always the odd man out, the token Black guy.

Abraham: It was hard enough as a Black guy to even just be there. Let alone now put yourself in the spotlight, put yourself on the stage. It's a whole different story.

Frazier: So Joe and I are essentially the same age. And it's funny that we never really clicked up before we did, because we were pretty much at the same shows at the same time. I think '95 was the first time I went to The Milk Bar. And I remember literally seeing no Black kids. And then, you go to a couple of shows, and it'd be like one Black kid over there. Then you see him again. And then it might be a couple. I would say there were about five Black kids total that I would see throughout different shows throughout the year. It kind of grew a little bit.

You mentioned feeling like the odd man out or tokenized. Do you feel like people underestimated WWB when you were first coming onto the scene? 

Abraham: When we started we were 18, 19 years old. We weren't good. It took years of playing shows every single night back-to-back and touring before we became this fine-tuned machine that we are now.

Largen: I think that the live show was always what sold it because they [people who hadn't seen the band before] didn't realize how actually into it that we were. They could see it was legitimate. And we, you know, really put our hearts into it. So many times after so many shows, I can't tell you how many sound men or promoters would come up to you and just be like, 'man, I was just blown away by you guys' and 'I love you guys' and 'you're always welcome back here.' It's crazy, but you definitely wouldn't feel that, at least in the beginning, until they accepted you.

Can you talk more about your connection with Jacksonville?

Abraham: So way back when WWB first started with the whole 'Duval,' thing, which is everywhere now, you would only hear that from Easy E on 92.7 THE BEAT JAMZ. There were no bands saying that yet, the football team wasn't doing that. WWB came out and started doing that. We were definitely the first band to be doing that. Because of us, people were doing it in other cities before it made it to the Jags.

And as far as speaking to Jacksonville, we have always promoted that we're from Jacksonville as part of our platform. If you open up any WWB CD, you're gonna see Jacksonville references in every single CD front and center. I definitely claim the Southside — Sans Souci — to be specific.

Why was it important for the band to rep Jacksonville?

Abraham: In the hip-hop world, that's what rappers do. They let you know what hood they are from and they claim their f-----g hood, right? That's what we did. I started the band here, I claim here, I eat here, raise my kids here, I got shot here, went to the hospital here. So I was letting everyone know, 'Hey, this is where I'm from.' This is what we claim. And we're Duval all the way. And this was before Jacksonville was a thing. Now, you've got a bunch of other young rappers blowing up. But first, you had us basically doing the same.

Also, I felt like in punk rock, the South didn't have representation. Everyone knows California punk bands or New York hardcore. But in itself, the South didn't have proper representation. So we were like, well, we are going to represent, everywhere we tour we're going to represent, making the crowd say 'Duuvaal' before we play this next song.

Frazier: People from Duval appreciate that sort of thing. I think people that are from here or have been here long enough, they just love this place. And I'm proud. When we're on tour, I'm always repping Jacksonville with the shirts, with the Jaguars, no matter how bad we were. Because I was like, that's our team. We're proud of it. But I don't know if people really get what WWB has done for the city in that way.

Do you feel like Jacksonville's music scene gets enough credit? 

Frazier: We get in between punk and rap with our music. But I feel like sometimes the city doesn't show the love, or they just don't know how pivotal bands like us, Evergreen Terrace have been, even Inspection 12. They've done so much for the scene. When Evergreen Terrace and we were on Warped Tour, back in '09. We met up with them and we just had a Jacksonville party every night that we were on that tour. We were representing Jacksonville on this major traveling tour. You know, I don't know that the city really understands how big of a deal that was.

What new stuff is in the works for WWB?

Abraham: We've been dropping some singles. We just dropped two that we're proud of. And we shot our video for the new song, 'Pimpin.'" We're going to drop that single at the end of September.

No fans have heard this even though the song is over 10 years old. Wow. Yes. And it's funny that we're doing this song, releasing it with Rick [Grice] because we recorded it with him over 10 years ago. It just came back full circle.

Grice: Yeah, I had to go dig into like 30 or 40 hard drives to find it, but we did. From there we revamped it.

Frazier: It's crazy because you can remember where you were when you recorded. It's like time travel. But it's fresh to other people. But you remember all the experiences that you had related to that song.

So let's go into that. What was your headspace when you first wrote Pimpin'? 

Abraham: I wrote this song about how big my head was at the time. We were in the studio and had some free time. Swordz [a local rapper who came onto the scene in the early 2000s] came to the studio and we were just having fun. I recorded some guitar tracks for him and said 'why don't you just lay down some vocals on this one song.' I took inspiration from the classical song 'In the Hall of the Mountain King.' I was like 'what if there's a mountain pimp?' It was meant to be funny. I made myself a pseudo personality where I talk about being a pimp — I'm not a pimp, obviously. But that's where the lyrics came from. We plan to release it at the end of the month and premiere the video in October.

Frazier: It's well captured. I feel like that's what I'm starting to realize at this age. That's really what music is all about. You capture things you don't even realize at the time. There's a lot of stuff that I've written and I've listened to it now like, 'man, I remember exactly what I was thinking at that time.' But I do not feel like that anymore — my life is completely different.

Largen: That's funny, because in my car, the WWB 'Minority Rules' CD. Since I bought the car, that CD has been there. One of my kids found it in the glove box or something, and it's been in there for years. Now, my two youngest kids are five years old and eight years old. They literally like every car trip are like 'play the CD.' It's just weird. It puts me back in the studio.

Tell me more about the new upcoming album.

Abraham: So it's going to be B-sides and a couple of brand new songs. Most tracks are  previously recorded songs that no one has heard and there will be two songs on it that people have heard that are just mixed a little bit better.

Because we haven't done a show since before the pandemic and we were getting income from our fans streaming our music, we decided to take that money and make it count. Let's give them something else, you know — if they're still listening to this, let's go ahead and do something.

So this video that we just shot was based on 100 percent fan money, not our money, not label money, money that fans have been putting into our pockets. So we're giving this back to them.

Can fans expect more music and shows in the future?

Abraham: This is what we can do at this time. We're all older. I'm in anesthesia school. [Largen's] got five kids. It makes it harder for us. I have about a year left in school and then I'll be able to do more. As far as touring, that's unlikely to happen while I'm in school. But one-off shows are very likely. We definitely hope to do something big for Duval Day [also known as 904 Day] next year.

Find Whole Wheat Bread's new music on all streaming platforms. Keep up with the band on social media: @wholewheatbread on Facebook or @dirtysouthpunkrock on Instagram. 

Emily Bloch is a youth culture and education reporter for The Florida Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter or email her. Sign up for her newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Celebrate 904 Day with this Q&A with Duval legends, Whole Wheat Bread