It’s been just about three years since Whalen and the Willows — Joshua Whalen, Jessica Williams and Victoria Torkelson — played publicly together. The folk trio were steadily moving up, playing larger and more wide-ranging festivals.

However, life intervened with a blessing for Whalen and Williams when they introduced their daughter Joanna into the world. As is so often the case, things were put on hold as they figured out where to go next.

“When Jess was pregnant, we decided to put things on hold and try to figure out how to be parents,” Whalen recounted on a sunny Saturday afternoon near Wildwood Park in Austin. “When we learned there’s no figuring it out … well, we might as well start up music again.”

And that they have, while at the same time introducing two new members to the band in guitarist Nick Braaten and Trevor Bordelon on bass.

It’s a combination that will add that right extra touch which the group hopes will continue the trend they were on in 2014.

Surprise! We’re a band!

Happy accidents sometimes make the world go around and in the case of Whalen and Willows, that is the truth of things. While not strictly an accident, the reforming of the band wasn’t exactly a planned thing, either — especially in the case of Torkelson and Williams.

Both hadn’t put a lot of thought toward reforming the band until a couple of  coincidences realigned their courses.

As a trio, Whalen, Williams and Torkelson had not played together since 2014, after they had completed a winding tour that took them through stops on the west coast.

With the birth of Joanna the music was put on a shelf, but it was never forgotten.

“Not making music is just never a thought,” Whalen said. “The thought has always been, ‘OK, well I’m going to wait until it’s the right time to start playing again.”

“Whalen and the Willows has just been amazing and I didn’t want it to go away, but I didn’t want to force it either,” Whalen continued. “I was hopeful, but uncertain.”

However, plans started to swirl, not from intricate planning, but by simple jamming — which is how both Williams and Torkelson fell back into playing. In their own ways, everything returned to center just by playing simple music in a simple setting.

For Williams, it was the act of walking into a room, despite not being altogether certain she really wanted the life.

“They kind of started back up without me initially because I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to jump back into it,” Williams said as her two-year-old dozed in her arms. “My parents already have Joanna fairly often, but then one day, I just brought something up to the room while they were rehearsing. There were like, ‘You should sit down and sing a song with us.’ And so I did, and they were like, ‘So you’re back in the band, right?’”

For Torkelson it was much the same thing. Some simple playing and then a surprise.

“I didn’t even know it was going to start, really, until Nick said one day, ‘You want to come and jam with Joshua and I?’” she said. “I was like, ‘Sure,’ and then we started playing some of our old songs and I was like, ‘OK, cool,’ and then Josh was like, So we’re going to play this date, this day and this date.’ I was like, ‘Oh … all right.’”

Sometimes, that’s how good things happen.

“It was kind of unexpected,” Williams said. “There was always a thought that it was something we would eventually get back to. There wasn’t really a conversation. It just kind of happens.”

Trevor and Nick

The addition of Bordelon and Braaten will add a new side and sound to Whalen and Willows. Both have been playing music for most, if not all, their lives, but they are also coming from different backgrounds.

Bordelon played mostly in cover bands while Braaten was a so-called metalhead with tastes of different kinds of genres in general — just not folk.

But like most musicians, this is an opportunity to expand and to branch off into something they haven’t played before.

“Folk is definitely not my background, but I view this as an opportunity to put my own spin on some of [Whalen’s] songs,” Braaten said.

Bordelon, too is new, though he has always been a fan of the genre.

“I’ve always played in cover bands and upbeat bands, but I’ve always been a fan of folk and blue grass, especially as a bass player because they hold down the rhythmic nature without a drum being present.”

With that difference in background comes a difference in sound. Whalen and the Willows as a trio produced a woven, graceful transition through their music that walked through emotions like a warm, fall day.

With the addition of Bordelon and Braaten, that sound will become fuller, deeper and more complex, challenging them both in a different way.

“There’s a lot of movement in folk music — back and forth, but as far as chords go, structure, it’s fairly simple so when you add those layers of complexity. It not only adds to the vocal harmony, but it added to the melodic harmony that’s happening,” Bordelon explained. “Especially with Nick and Josh strumming their guitars.”

It’s further enhanced with Braaten’s electric guitar.

“I think I can bring a non-folk related guitar sound to the folk genre,” Braaten said. “I told Josh from the beginning, I definitely call myself a folk guitarist. I can definitely do what I can do to try and make it sound fun.”

It was a move that worked with perfect fluidity.

“Bringing them in has been awesome,” Whalen said. “Nick and I started jamming and Nick really had a lot of ideas and wanted to contribute. I thought, ‘This is outstanding; this is stuff I never would have thought of.’ Then we jammed with Trevor and it was the same thing. We sit and talk about the songs and some ideas and how we wanted it to feel but they bring their own parts.”

Still here

While the sounds might be varied and changed in subtle ways, the core feel of the group will still be Whalen and the Willows. Think of it as a construction project.

“I think people are going to notice a different vibe,” Whalen said. “There is going to be a new sound and it’s definitely going to be more rhythmic because adding the bass, it’s going to be a lot more foot-tapping so I think the energy is going to be the first thing they notice.”

Coming from outside the trio, Bordelon pushed the notion though that underneath it all it’s going to very much be Whalen and the Willows — just make sure you keep your ears open to the new parts, because each song will have the capability to flow from one side to the other and back again.

“As an outsider, I came in, Nick especially kept telling me, ‘Oh, we got this new song. It’s really bluesy and driving and kind of delta blues kind of feel and you know I was pumped when I first heard it because there was a cool riff going on and the thing that stood out to me as I was learning it is it has this traditional blues vibe and then it changes that and turns around the chord progression,” he explained. “As soon as I heard those chords in that turn around I was like, “That’s totally Whalen and the Willows.’”

It was a moment that he remembered.

“That’s a moment as a musician, we were playing up in the jam space and I got goosebumps,” he said.

Some of that reworking wraps back to the vocals as well and while it won’t require much of a change from those who add their voices to the songs, there will be the opportunity to simply make the songs better.

“Just the other day we sat down and rewrote some harmonies on a couple of our songs — just made them tighter, more like a traditional folk harmony and it really brings out the main melody and makes that more prominent,” Torkelson said.

From Williams’ standpoint, who is strictly vocals for the band, it’s part of an ever-changing vocal experience. Something that adds to more complexity of what the band is hoping to accomplish.

“I think that’s something that’s always changing,” she said. “When we first started out, I used to sing with a lot more vibrato and then we went into the studio and it was all just going for a smooth, soft flowing sound. I feel that’s something we’re always changing up. I don’t know if I would say specifically it’s the change in the group.”