She always wanted to be in a band, but things – family problems, toxic relationships, fear itself – kept getting in the way. Now, Emily Whetstone explores all of these things through Van Mary.

Story by Carys Anderson

EMILY Whetstone’s first message to the world as a musician is about her abortion. 

“I’m not ready to be a mother / Can we please respect one another?” she warbles in “New Mexico,” Van Mary’s first single released in October. It’s a hazy reflection on her 2015 trip to the state from Austin to undergo the procedure after missing Texas’ legal cutoff date. 

“I’m fine / But my heart is heavy / And I’ll be on that line / Cause my body’s not mine,” she announces in the chorus. 

It’s a vulnerable first offering, especially for someone who says she grew up with “zero self confidence.” 

“I literally could not even look people in the eye,” Whetstone said. “Nothing.”

Now 28 years-old, Whetstone is far different than the shy adolescent she describes. When we talk a few weeks after “New Mexico’s” October release, she holds my gaze easily, her blue eyes wide as she recounts the ups and downs of her life matter-of-factly. What began as a solo act confined to Whetstone’s living room is now a four piece band, whose debut EP is out this December. Whetstone, guitarist Emily Ng, bassist Katelynn Garza and drummer Adrian Audain deliver a classic indie rock sound at shows across Austin on bills with scene favorites like SMiiLE and The Stacks. 

It took a lot to get here. Whetstone grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised on conservative ideals she didn’t agree with. 

“I just felt very isolated,” Whetstone recalled. “My family’s really conservative and I would listen to them as a kid and just think, ‘That doesn’t seem right.’” 

She grew depressed going to Catholic school with people she couldn’t relate to. 

“I remember being in church or Sunday school when I was 10, and I really wanted to go up to a Sunday school teacher and be like, ‘I don’t believe in God,’” she said. “I just always kind of thought it was bullshit, but I was too scared. But I vividly remember having the urge to go up to him after and be like, ‘What does this say about me? Is that okay?’” 

Whetstone left Tennessee when she was just 18 to live with her high school boyfriend as he attended USC, but the relationship was toxic. After three years, she jumped from L.A. to Houston, where her parents had relocated, and then to Austin, however it took years for the relationship to really end. 

“Even when we broke up the first time when I moved we were still in contact,” Whetstone says. “He’s a tour manager, so he was always coming through Texas, and I was so lonely here that I was like, ‘Yeah, let me meet up with you.’” 

She broke off the nine-year relationship for good in 2017 and used her savings to fulfill her longtime dream of visiting France. That’s when she really healed; she worked on a vineyard and weaned herself off the prescription drugs she had used back home. She returned to Austin that summer set on starting a band. 

WHETSTONE and I first meet one chilly Wednesday evening at Apt. 115, an up-and-coming wine bar on the East side she thinks will be quiet enough for us to chat. Yet,  when I arrive, the room is full. It looks like people are catching on to its charms. Whetstone lives nearby, so she offers up her house instead. “I need to feed my dog anyway,” she said.

At her teal-grey bungalow, we’re greeted by Petey the cat, “the one good thing to come out of that traumatic time” in L.A., Whetstone said. 

Whetstone is tall with short, blonde hair. She’s wearing a Breeders t-shirt over her turtleneck, which matches the Breeders poster hanging in her living room. They’re one of her favorite bands, she said, and it shows; Van Mary’s melodies are quietly infectious, and a song like “Dead” opens with the same type of thumping bassline that lead Breeder Kim Deal made famous in her first band and another Whetstone favorite, the Pixies. 

After Whetstone feeds Mae, the brindle pit bull in question, we sit at the kitchen table. She throws the dog a toy as she recounts the Van Mary story. It was that first summer back in Austin that she wrote and began performing the songs that will be on the upcoming EP. Ng and Audain joined the band last fall, and Garza joined in January. Word of mouth from those early home shows, and Whetstone’s friendships with many musicians in the scene led artists to invite her to jump on bills before even hearing her play. 

Whetstone’s friendships with local musicians may have helped her get gigs, but her best friend, SMiiLE bassist Harrison Anderson, is quick to separate her from those artists whose only fans are their friends. 

“I feel like you can start to kind of tell pretty quick if it really stands apart from everything else,” Anderson says. “I feel like there are tiers, and one of the tiers is like, ‘Friend Rock,’ where you play your shows and it’s nothing but your friends [that] show up to the show. And then the next tier is, maybe it’s acquaintances that are coming. People you’re not really friends with, but you know them. And then once you start to get more of acquaintances, and then strangers, coming to your show, that’s when it really starts to build momentum.” 

Anderson says Van Mary has grown so fast because the music is good, not just because they have a sociable leader.

“It’s a great feeling when you’re listening to your friend’s music and it’s not, ‘Oh, this is special because it’s my friend.’ It’s, ‘I actually like this music a lot. How incredible that I get to call this person my friend?’” 

Later that evening, Whetstone and Anderson will meet up for practice. The two perform together sometimes – usually just karaoke duets at Hole in the Wall, but on Saturday, Anderson will join Whetstone for her set at the Far Out Lounge. The bill lists King Country, Van Mary, The Stacks and Brother Sports. But for now, over the patter of Mae’s feet on the wood floors, Whetstone keeps talking.

WHETSTONE didn’t even know she could sing until a few years ago. She was always too shy to try, until a singing assignment in a theater class she took in L.A. yielded positive feedback. Then, after moving to Texas, she started celebrating Thanksgiving with her father’s family, a group more musical (and liberal) than her mother’s. Each holiday would end in an all-night jam session. 

“One cousin plays saxophone and guitar, the other plays keys, my uncle plays harmonica, my brother plays guitar, and we kind of would just pile into this room, and we started family jams that would go until the sun comes up,” she said. “It’s so much fun. And the family band needed a singer, and so I started singing just with my family band.”

Whetstone says she still wasn’t confident in her voice, but her family assured her she had something. 

“I would record what we would play on my phone and listen to it back. I’d get back to Austin and listen to it and be like, ‘Hm, this sounds pretty good.’”

SATURDAY comes, and the Far Out Lounge is indeed far out. Deep in South Austin, Whetstone follows the heavy thrashing of Waco band King Country with a short set of songs much quieter in comparison. It’s just her and a guitar, after all. She runs through a few riff-y, self-deprecating songs, as well as “New Mexico.” The single is different than the band’s usual indie sound; it’s almost country, with Whetstone’s vulnerable narration and twangy strumming. Anderson watches intently from the front of the crowd until his time to join her. When he gets on stage with his own guitar, the country vibes grow stronger. 

“We both have roots in country music,” Anderson says. His own solo music delves into the sad, lone-ranger style of songwriting, and on nights at Hole in the Wall you can usually catch he and Whetstone covering John Prine and Johnny and June Carter Cash. This evening, the two harmonize music by Daniel Johnston, and a song Anderson wrote just for them. 

Whetstone admits after the set that she was nervous — she usually only plays solo on smaller stages, but a miscommunication led Van Mary’s other guitarist Ng to be out of town that evening. Her nerves don’t show on stage, though. She talks to the crowd — a scattered backyard gathering far removed from the stage — like she’s talking to a few friends. And for the most part, she is. She thanks one friend for selling her the coat she’s wearing on this cold evening, and spots another in real time. When she finishes her set, she hypes the crowd for her friends in The Stacks. 

BATTLING anxiety is a big part of Whetstone’s life and career. She waits tables six days a week, a job she calls “emotionally exhausting.” 

“It’s a really hard job because if you’re feeling like shit – and I’m always anxious at work – you’re forced to be on and kind of put on this show,” she says. 

After getting over the stuttering, though, Whetstone grew to enjoy the job. It’s flexible – although her busy schedule makes it difficult to write and practice with the band – and she credits it for the confidence she has in performing now. 

“I was just meeting new people and talking to strangers multiple times a night,” she said. “It’s good. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else right now.” 

Releasing music for the first time comes with similar pros and cons. 

“I had so much anxiety releasing ‘New Mexico,’” Whetstone says. “I was excited, but I think I cried everyday for like a week and a half because I was like, ‘This is the first thing I’ve ever released, and that in and of itself is super scary, and also it’s just about something so personal, and I got scared of pro-lifers sending me hate mail. I don’t think I’m famous enough for that, but…” she trailed off. 

Whetstone worried about her family’s reaction to the song as well. She kept news of the single’s release off Facebook, her family’s social media platform of choice.

“I want them to know, but I’m still… I mean, I was raised to think that if you got an abortion, you’re a terrible person, you’re going to Hell,” Whetstone says. “Not that I believed in that stuff, but I don’t know. It’s still a struggle to be really honest with them because most of my family is so against it. But I’m sure they’ll find out. They just have to Google.” 

Despite Whetstone’s stress – over balancing work and music and becoming a more visible artist – she reiterates how happy she is with the trajectory of her still new band. And “New Mexico” wasn’t chosen to be her first single by chance; it’s the song she’s most proud of. 

“I’ve had so many women reach out to me and tell me their stories and be like, ‘Thank you for being so open about it,’” Whetstone says. “Which I wasn’t for a long time, because it’s a heavy topic and you don’t know how people are going to react, but I just got to the point where I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna be an open book about this, and talk about it candidly, because it’s really not a big deal.’And I feel like that would help to hopefully de-stigmatize it.”