Kevin Jordan - This Wild Life (11/12/2014)
I’ll never forget when I watched a crowd boo Bob Dylan for the simple fact of playing an electric guitar. I of course wasn’t there physically, being only sixteen, but watching it on TV baffled me. Why was the folk music so against the idea of plugging your instrument in?
This would continue to baffle me until I eventually found my way around bandcamp and fell in love a host of artists who stripped everything back and left just a voice and an acoustic guitar to be admired. It’s something powerful, a person and their guitar. It’s so honest and so raw; it’s a level of passion an electric just can’t bring.
This is exactly what America’s This Wild Life have achieved and more. They began as a pop-punk band but after the acoustic versions of their songs gained more traction than the originals, the move to unplug from the amp was inevitable. Consisting of Kevin Jordan on vocals and guitar and Anthony Del Grosso on lead guitar, the duo have captivated audiences across the globe and have amassed a strong online following. When it came time to talk with Jordan about the bands venture to Soundwave next year, I found that talking to him was just like spinning their music, relaxed and simply chilled.
“We're super excited. We were there in May and all the fans plus multiple other people were telling us that we needed to play Soundwave,” the singer says. “I've seen multiple Soundwave lineups since it started and I've always thought about going over there just to see it but to actually go over and play it is kind of crazy.”
This Wild Life utilize far more than just their guitars and vocals on record. From piano and strings, to drums and bass, the band still manage to achieve that raw excitement and honesty of acoustic music whislt retaining the filled out sound. Yet when it comes times to step on stage, the band strips themselves right back down, grabbing the minimalist approach of their genre whilst still retaining the same weight of the music.
“It's just us two. Sometimes we'll do drums at shows and it will be Anthony on drums as we're both drummers. So if there's drums on the record it's one of us doing them. But we just like to keep it to the two of us when we perform.”
That’s gotta be nerve-wrecking! One busted note and the whole crowd knows it happened. A few cents out of tune and a couple music nerds will critique you to no end. Despite the non-existent room for error, Jordan isn’t fazed by that nor the sheer amount of people prevalent at Soundwave.
“We just got off Warped Tour which has the similar festival style. It's definitely a lot smaller. I think the biggest attendance of Warped Tour is twenty-five thousand people and I hear that Soundwave can get up to seventy-five so it's a big jump in people but honestly, we're just going to be getting up there on stage and doing the same thing we always do. We're going play our set and hopefully create something special.”
Clouded was the band’s first official release as an acoustic project and for once in what seems like a long bloody time, good music is getting exactly the praise it deserves.
“The response has been better than we had hoped for! We weren't worried what critics would think when we were writing it; we didn't even think critics would hear it so to read magazines and to see them giving us compliments is pretty darn crazy! But like I said, we weren't worried about that which is a good thing I think. If we had tried to make a record that everyone loved we wouldn't have made the record that we loved.”
The singer-songwriter genre and acoustic music seems to be gaining a lot of purchase on the mainstream eye. “I think that mainstream music bounces back and forth. It goes from really slick, over produced music to more stripped back and modest stuff. Like for a few years there was a lot of over produced electronic music on the radio and whatnot that I think people are now ready to listen to something a bit more stripped back and modest."
“There's room for both sides I think though. Like there's room for some crazy, produced electronic music; that stuff's great but I think that there's also room for variation. People are listening to a lot more different styles at once than ever before and that's great.”
This Wild Life have always been happy being the odd man out when it comes to shows. Hell, the band toured with Being As An Ocean! Soundwave will have even more juxtaposition as they face the likes of Of Mice & Men and Slipknot on the same bill; and that is exactly what Jordan wants.
“It would be one thing if we were to go up there and match the stage presence of Slipknot or Of Mice & Men or Fall Out Boy or something. We don't have the music to match that energy and we can't go running and jumping on the stage as such. That's just not what our band is about. So we don't try and compete with that, we're perfectly happy to stand out and be the different band among the lot. That's what it was like on Warped Tour. We played on a stage with bands like Issues and Secrets and Bayside and Anberlin; bands that were much much more heavy and energetic than us so we don't try and compete. But I also think it works well because these kids are standing in the hot sun and jumping around all day so I think it's nice they can come and chill out for a bit and listen to some mellow music. It works out really well in the end.”
I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for that time to grab a fifteen dollar burger and chill out to one of the strongest bands on next year’s bill.
Now that you’re done reading this, don’t just take my word for it; you should go and grab the band’s debut album, Clouded right now through Epitaph. And yeah, I mean right now. You’ll love it so much, you’ll probably buy it twice.
Matt Sievers
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE
This would continue to baffle me until I eventually found my way around bandcamp and fell in love a host of artists who stripped everything back and left just a voice and an acoustic guitar to be admired. It’s something powerful, a person and their guitar. It’s so honest and so raw; it’s a level of passion an electric just can’t bring.
This is exactly what America’s This Wild Life have achieved and more. They began as a pop-punk band but after the acoustic versions of their songs gained more traction than the originals, the move to unplug from the amp was inevitable. Consisting of Kevin Jordan on vocals and guitar and Anthony Del Grosso on lead guitar, the duo have captivated audiences across the globe and have amassed a strong online following. When it came time to talk with Jordan about the bands venture to Soundwave next year, I found that talking to him was just like spinning their music, relaxed and simply chilled.
“We're super excited. We were there in May and all the fans plus multiple other people were telling us that we needed to play Soundwave,” the singer says. “I've seen multiple Soundwave lineups since it started and I've always thought about going over there just to see it but to actually go over and play it is kind of crazy.”
This Wild Life utilize far more than just their guitars and vocals on record. From piano and strings, to drums and bass, the band still manage to achieve that raw excitement and honesty of acoustic music whislt retaining the filled out sound. Yet when it comes times to step on stage, the band strips themselves right back down, grabbing the minimalist approach of their genre whilst still retaining the same weight of the music.
“It's just us two. Sometimes we'll do drums at shows and it will be Anthony on drums as we're both drummers. So if there's drums on the record it's one of us doing them. But we just like to keep it to the two of us when we perform.”
That’s gotta be nerve-wrecking! One busted note and the whole crowd knows it happened. A few cents out of tune and a couple music nerds will critique you to no end. Despite the non-existent room for error, Jordan isn’t fazed by that nor the sheer amount of people prevalent at Soundwave.
“We just got off Warped Tour which has the similar festival style. It's definitely a lot smaller. I think the biggest attendance of Warped Tour is twenty-five thousand people and I hear that Soundwave can get up to seventy-five so it's a big jump in people but honestly, we're just going to be getting up there on stage and doing the same thing we always do. We're going play our set and hopefully create something special.”
Clouded was the band’s first official release as an acoustic project and for once in what seems like a long bloody time, good music is getting exactly the praise it deserves.
“The response has been better than we had hoped for! We weren't worried what critics would think when we were writing it; we didn't even think critics would hear it so to read magazines and to see them giving us compliments is pretty darn crazy! But like I said, we weren't worried about that which is a good thing I think. If we had tried to make a record that everyone loved we wouldn't have made the record that we loved.”
The singer-songwriter genre and acoustic music seems to be gaining a lot of purchase on the mainstream eye. “I think that mainstream music bounces back and forth. It goes from really slick, over produced music to more stripped back and modest stuff. Like for a few years there was a lot of over produced electronic music on the radio and whatnot that I think people are now ready to listen to something a bit more stripped back and modest."
“There's room for both sides I think though. Like there's room for some crazy, produced electronic music; that stuff's great but I think that there's also room for variation. People are listening to a lot more different styles at once than ever before and that's great.”
This Wild Life have always been happy being the odd man out when it comes to shows. Hell, the band toured with Being As An Ocean! Soundwave will have even more juxtaposition as they face the likes of Of Mice & Men and Slipknot on the same bill; and that is exactly what Jordan wants.
“It would be one thing if we were to go up there and match the stage presence of Slipknot or Of Mice & Men or Fall Out Boy or something. We don't have the music to match that energy and we can't go running and jumping on the stage as such. That's just not what our band is about. So we don't try and compete with that, we're perfectly happy to stand out and be the different band among the lot. That's what it was like on Warped Tour. We played on a stage with bands like Issues and Secrets and Bayside and Anberlin; bands that were much much more heavy and energetic than us so we don't try and compete. But I also think it works well because these kids are standing in the hot sun and jumping around all day so I think it's nice they can come and chill out for a bit and listen to some mellow music. It works out really well in the end.”
I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for that time to grab a fifteen dollar burger and chill out to one of the strongest bands on next year’s bill.
Now that you’re done reading this, don’t just take my word for it; you should go and grab the band’s debut album, Clouded right now through Epitaph. And yeah, I mean right now. You’ll love it so much, you’ll probably buy it twice.
Matt Sievers
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE