NKD Mag - Issue #25 (July 2013) by NKD Mag

ON THE COVER

CONOR MAYNARD

PAGES

36-43

“I WASN’T JUST SOME KID THAT A MAJOR LABEL PICKED UP AND GAVE SOME SONGS TO SING.” CONOR MAYNARD

NKD NAKED MAGAZINE

PUBLISHERS

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

CONTACT

Ariella Mastroianni Catherine Powell

Elizabeth Goold

Publicity » Catherine Powell catherine@nkdmag.com

WRITERS

MANAGING EDITOR

Tara DeVincenzo Olga Khvan Alex Lane Stacy Magallon Nicole Mazza Shina Patel Stephanie Petit Catherine Powell Kiki Van Son Tanya Traner

Nicola Pring

PHOTOGRAPHER Catherine Powell

DESIGNER Ariella Mastroianni Meryll Preposi*

Writing » Nicola Pring nicola@nkdmag.com Advertising » Silvia Orozco silvia@nkdmag.com

Tweet us! @nakedmag

*Meryll Preposi is a contributing design consultant for Naked Magazine, issue 25

IN THIS ISSUE CAPITAL CITIES

FEATURES ON THE RISE KITTEN[4] NEW POLITICS [8] WILLIAM BECKETT[12] YOUNG HOLLYWIOOD CHRISTOPH SANDERS [18] STEVIE LYNN JONES [20] NKD LOCAL: NEW YORK AGAINST THE CURRENT [28] YOUNG RISING SONS [30] TAUK [34] MAJOR LABEL INDIE CAPITAL CITIES [44] YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE [48]

EDITORIAL FEATURED PLAYLIST [16] DAN GERAGHTY OF HOLLYWOOD ENDING

INDUSTRY WRITE-IN [17] Mark Shami, Co-Founder, Tandem Label

PHOTO FEATURE [22] WILLIAM BECKETT

NEW POLITICS

THE WANTED, RASCAL FLATTS, NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

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ON THE RISE 6 6

featuring

KITTEN NEW POLITICS WILLIAM BECKETT

KITTEN Words by Tanya Traner » Photos by Catherine Powell Two years ago, electro-pop rock band Kitten were playing to audiences of 15 people. This spring, the young band opened for Paramore on their 2013 North American Spring Tour. All five members of the band started playing music at an early age. Chloe Chaidez says her father began teaching her to play bass when she was 10. She covered Sigur Ros songs from a mixes her dad would make for her every month. “That’s how I learned about song structure, through covering songs,” frontwoman Chloe says. Drummer Lukas Frank started taking drum lessons when he was young. He and Chloe met at a party just two years ago and formed an instant friendship. Lukas was friends with bassist Zach Bilson, keyboardist Bryan DeLeon and guitarist Waylon Rector, and he brought them all into the band. “Everything just kind of fell into place,” Chloe says. “We just kind of clicked musically.” The group began playing shows around Los Angeles where they all grew up. They have very fond memories of their hometown and the advantages they had in what Chloe describes as a “blooming youth culture.” “There are so many underage venues that I don’t think a lot of other cities have,” Chloe says. “There’s places [where] younger bands can really thrive. There’s so many shows too. So many bands start in L.A.”

She says some of her favorite bands like Trash Talk and No Age started at a venue called The Smell, which happens to be where she played her first show as well. “L.A. is the shit. L.A. is awesome,” Lukas says. “After touring, I think I’m so lucky to have grown up here.” Bryan says artists in L.A. aren’t subject to the same judgment he sees from those in other states. “In L.A., it’s like, ‘Oh you play in a band? That’s cool, check out my band,’” Bryan says. “I feel like in other places in the U.S. it’s not like that. In L.A. it’s cool to want do that for a living. In other places, if you aren’t a famous band people expect you to be doing all the stuff you’re supposed to be doing as a young adult.” Kitten signed to Electro Records six months ago. Being signed to a major label while finishing school wasn’t easy for everyone in the band. Bryan says he tried to do both the band and community college, but made the decision to drop out. “I was like, ‘Mom, I’m going to drop out of school.’ And she was like, ‘I’m surprised you went to school in the first place,’” he says, laughing. It wasn’t a problem for Chloe, who stopped going to school in ninth grade and has been working with a tutor. “My school was psyched,” says Lukas, who left high school to pursue the band. “They were just excited to be able to say, ‘Oh one of our students is on tour doing this.’” The group says they are lucky to have parents who support them and allow them to make their own decisions. Lukas says he had to make some promises to his parents to allow him to pursue music during high school. “See, I’m getting good grades and it’s not an issue,” he says. “When your parents see that you’re so clearly focused on something, I think they allow you to do what you want to do,” Chloe adds.

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Chloe says the band has worked hard to build a devoted audience in L.A. They got a residency at Bootleg Theater, which helped them build a fan base and sell out shows. “I remember Haley Williams came to one of our shows and she couldn’t get in,” Chloe says, laughing. “And she was like, ‘Dude, come on.’ And [the bouncer] was like ‘Nope, at capacity.’” When Kitten toured with Paramore, they got to experience some of the same perks as the rock band, including free catering each night and Guitar Center deals, but they all agree the fans were the best part. “The fans are so devoted,” Bryan says. “I thought there was a chance that when we hit the stage, they would be like, ‘Ok, when is Paramore coming on?’ Honestly, there has been a little bit of that, but for the most part they have been really welcoming.” After every show, Kitten had a meet and greet, and Bryan says the fans were all really stoked to meet them. Because there were two female leads on tour together, some fans tried to draw similarities between their sounds, even though they’re different. The group says they often get compared to a lot of bands they think they sound nothing like, including Flyleaf and The Black Keys, but they don’t mind. “It’s kind of cool though,” Lukas says. “Because if you like trippy music and you think our music is trippy, then you know that’s awesome.” “I think something that is invaluable about our music is that you can’t really put a cap on it,” Chloe adds. “You don’t hear it and completely understand what it’s about and where it’s coming from.”

“IF YOU LIKE TRIPPY MUSIC AND YOU THINK OUR MUSIC IS TRIPPY, THEN YOU KNOW THAT’S AWESOME.” LUKAS FRANK

The group is also working on the follow-up record to their EP, Cut It Out, which they released in August last year. The new album was originally intended to be an extension of the EP, but it quickly grew into a separate project. Things have really ramped up for the band in the last six months, and their sold out tour with Paramore is an example of their success. “We’re always still a little bit baffled when there’s more than 20 people at a show,” Chloe says of the experience. “Now every time [we] play for an audience that’s huge, it’s crazy.” NKD

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NEW POLITICS

ON THE RISE 6 6

Words by Tara DeVincenzo » Photos by Catherine Powell New Politics are taking the express train uptown with their new album A Bad Girl From Harlem. Under the powerhouse label RCA Records, New Politics are touring with the album, which is a departure from their self-titled debut, and a representation of their new sound. With a drummer from Long Island and guitarist and vocalist from Denmark, New Politics are a melting pot of different sounds, and they want to explore all types of musical identities to create their own. The members of the band say they don’t have a distinct origin. “When we started the band we didn’t really know that we had a band,” says lead vocalist David Boyd. “It all happened very fast.” David and band mate Soren Hansen had been writing their own songs for almost two years while living in their home city of Copenhagen, Denmark. The pair, along with former drummer Poul Amaliel, had written a few songs and entered a competition in 2009, which ended up being their catalyst into the music business. “We ended up winning and realizing that … we had a shot at something,” David says. By 2009 the trio had been signed to RCA and took on the name New Politics. With a new persona in a brand new country, they had a clean slate to work with that was both intimidating and promising. After their debut album and two music videos, Poul left the band to pursuit his own project back in Denmark and around the same time, David and Soren met current drummer, Louis Vecchio.

Louis is a native New Yorker who had been playing the drums since he was taught by his father and grandfather when he was 3. He had played in garage bands since he was 12 or 13, so he had the right mix of tenure and talent to complete the Danish duo’s band. In terms of the music, every second of the experience of moving to the U.S. and settling in made its mark on the album for David and Soren. The pair initially felt unsettled by New York, though they used the uncertainty to their advantage. “You have all those small things that really inspire you, more than one thinks,” David says. “Small things like not being able to call up some friends and get a beer at a bar because you don’t really know, you’re settling in and stuff like that.” Now the guys are more than comfortable in their new home, and the city is a driving force behind their music. “New York is a very, very inspirational place to live,” Soren says. “Anything you can possibly imagine you can see.” Hopping subway turnstiles to get to Harlem is only one of the many adventures the band went on during the production of A Bad Girl From Harlem. Touring outside the city has shown Louis a different perspective. The band hasn’t gone on a full world tour yet, but they have performed together in Europe. Louis says the band always gets an exciting reception overseas. “Every crowd that we play to in Europe, everybody’s equally into it. Always,” he says.

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New Politics share a record label with monumental musical names including Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown, and they know pleasing crowds isn’t always enough — it’s about pleasing the label. “They will not accept a song unless it’s really good,” Soren says of their label. “And that is the best thing in the world and that is the worst thing in the world.” The guys say RCA knows what’s good, so they’re working to take what’s good and go beyond it. They don’t want to settle on one sound. Aside from using the city for inspiration, New Politics get ideas from other artists’ sounds. Their new album is focused on harnessing those inspirational sounds, which include everything from ’90s rock to Ke$ha. “[For] this album we just had to push each other so hard to suddenly realize we could do anything we want and there’s no limits,” Soren says. “There’s no style anymore, you just take whatever you want from anywhere.” From their single “Dignity” in which the vocals seem to emulate the Beastie Boys’ style of hip-hop, to their new single “Harlem,” which is more pop based, they keep stretching their range to try a little of everything. “There’s always something you can learn, somebody else’s point of view that is just as right,” David says. With a label that pressures them to be the best and the energy to experiment in almost every genre possible, the band is confident

“NEW YORK IS A VERY, VERY INSPIRATIONAL PLACE TO LIVE. ANYTHING YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE, YOU CAN SEE.” SOREN HANSEN

that, though their new album is different from the last, their range of sounds defines them. “We’re not afraid of the end result because we know it will be us in the end, because we do it,” David says. “It comes from us.” The band relies on one fixed concept when they make music to which they stay true. “It’s music, it is what it is,” David says. “It’s just honest and sincere.” NKD

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WILLIAM BECKETT

ON THE RISE 6 6

Words & Photos by Catherine Powell It’s a chilly spring night in New York City, but Chicago-bred William Beckett doesn’t seem to mind. As we walk The High Line, an aboveground park overlooking the Hudson River, we hear a group of girls singing “Happy Birthday” to their friend somewhere in the distance. William shouts a “happy birthday” to her, and we can’t help but laugh. I ask William how his day has been and he smirks and says, “It’s been long, and it’s not ending anytime soon.” The same can be said about his career. It’s been over 10 years since William entered the music scene, and the now 28-year-old and former singer of The Academy Is... isn’t at all close to slowing down. With his first solo full-length scheduled to drop later this summer, it almost seems like he’s just getting started. William was born during a horrible Midwestern blizzard — another reason he may not mind the cold — on February 11, 1985. “I was due on Valentine’s Day, but I came early because pre-subconsciously I knew that would suck,” he jokes. His parents divorced when he was only 4, and he and his younger sister, Christina, lived with their mother throughout their childhood. The family moved around the Chicago suburbs quite a bit, which meant changing schools frequently. “It was hard, but [my sister and I] came out of it strong,” he says. Throughout his middle school and early high school years William played baseball and basketball competitively, but music was always around. William’s parents were both interested in music — his mom was a big fan of ’80s new wave pop bands like Duran Duran, and his father was interested in the grunge movement in the early ’90s, piloted by Pearl Jam. “That kind of solidified my rock roots,” William says. His stepfather was into Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and had both bands’

box sets, which William says he “devoured” all through high school. He picked up the guitar in 10th grade and quit sports the following year. He had just switched schools yet again after his freshman year, which was a big contributing factor to quitting sports. “Music is what I was born to do, and I found that out in high school,” William says. He began writing songs on his acoustic guitar before learning anyone else’s songs. Every time he wrote a new song he would play it for his sister, and she would tell him what was good and what wasn’t. “She would break it down for me really honestly,” he says. William’s first show was in his friend’s basement for an audience of mostly girls, but he quickly clarifies his intention in being a musician was not to get girls. “I hate when people do that,” he says. “It’s not about attention for me.” For William, it started out, and still is, all about playing songs he wrote and getting them out there. As he was playing to the dozen girls at his first show, he saw a change in people’s faces. “When I saw that, I felt something too, and it made me want to be even more honest with [music],” he says. “That was the moment I knew I loved performing my songs.” From there, he started his first solo project, titled Remember Maine. He then graduated high school a semester early, turned down multiple academic scholarships and went on tour immediately. “My parents were like, ‘What the hell are you doing with your life?” he says. He then signed to a local label and recorded an acoustic album. When he came home from tour he realized he wanted more than an acoustic guitar on stage: he wanted a band. William then formed a band with bassist Adam Siska who had been his “biggest fan in high school,” and The Academy Is… was born.

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ON THE RISE 6 6

The Academy Is… toured around the globe for eight years, signed a deal with Atlantic Records, performed on late night TV and made three full-length records, but they never had a radio hit. “That was always a huge thing for us, because [the label] was always stressing so hard on a radio hit,” William says. At that time, Atlantic wasn’t making any money off the band’s tours, which today, labels see a percentage from. The band was making good money on the road, but the label needed a hit to see anything on their end. Despite that, the band had a very successful career before announcing their breakup in October 2011. “When it came time to write our fourth record … I just wasn’t in a good place to write music,” William says. A few members had left the band earlier that year and William’s relationship with his main writing partner, the band’s guitarist, had completely disintegrated. He was unhappy and because of that, his lyrics and melodies were not up to par. “I was writing bullshit to try and get a hit, and I hated myself,” William says. At that point, he knew it was time for the band to part ways. A little over a year ago William announced his solo project and released three EPs in 2012, followed by an acoustic album featuring all the previously released songs in the beginning of 2013. Now, he is prepping for the release of Genuine & Counterfeit, his debut full-length, which will be released on Aug. 20. “I just went on a writing craze, and it was awesome,” he says with a big grin. He wrote over 60 songs in three months and “it was all great,” according to his standards. “Whatever inspiration was missing came back immediately,” he says. “I came back to that feeling in my basement, and showing a song to my sister, and her saying, ‘That’s great!’” Releasing three EPs in less than eight months is unusual, which is one reason William was drawn to the idea. He wanted to release three “installations” and have them come together as a final piece. He was also easing fans into his new sound. “I’m not trying to piggyback what I did with The Academy Is…” he says. “I’m not trying to capitalize off of what I did then, I’m trying to start fresh.” He didn’t want to just dump a record on people and have them write it off right away. “I don’t want to recreate The Academy Is… and I don’t want to fool everyone into this electronic bullshit that’s happening now. I just wanted to make something that was real in doses that people could consume and let simmer.” William has faced some backlash from hardcore The Academy

“I’M NOT WRITING HIGH SCHOOL SHIT ANYMORE. I’M WRITING ABOUT LIFE IN GENERAL.” WILLIAM BECKETT

Is… fans who want nothing more than another Almost Here (2005) or Santi (2007), but he’s also found a brand new group of fans who had no idea who The Academy Is… were. “Those who supported the band forever, I will always cherish them and their devotion,” he says. “But I’m not writing high school shit anymore. I’m writing about life in general.” His new music can appeal to teenagers, but it’s more about relationships, making them work and being yourself. “It’s a very exciting time to be able to voice my experiences within life,” William says. William purposely spent the first year of his solo project working without a label. “First thing’s first, I was so sick of sitting on songs,” he says. “So the first thing I wanted to do when I was finally free of the label and the band was to release music immediately.” The best, and possibly only way for him to do that was to do it independently. He was able to control everything, but he always knew he wanted a label behind him to release his full-length. He eventually decided on Equal Vision Records because he knew they were still making records for the two most important groups of people: the artists and the fans. When it came time to really get to work on his full-length, he found the biggest problem was knowing when to stop writing. “There was a point in time where I was just like, ‘That’s it, I’ve written about everything I need to say right now,’” he says. William cut the 60 songs he wrote to 30 by himself before bringing his team in to cut it down to 15. “Those songs still exist, but they didn’t completely work with what I want to say with this record,” he says of the songs that were cut. Even now, more than 10 years after he started his music career, his sister is still his biggest critic. The night before our interview he finished the final mixes of the album, and he beams brightly and says he’s ready to show his sister when he sees her later tonight. William’s sister isn’t the only family member who gets special sneak peeks — his 5-year-old daughter is his biggest fan. “One of the main reasons I wanted to do this on my own was for her sake,” he says. William wants to leave a legacy and a collection of songs that his daughter can go through to help her get to know him better if something tragic happens and he’s not there to help her himself. But for now, he’s enjoying his time with her when he’s home. As hard as it is for him to leave when he goes on tour, William makes the most of the time he has at home. “We write songs together,” he says with a huge smile. “One of them is called ‘Smelly Belly Button.’” He’s not forcing music on her by any means, but like most 5-year-old girls, William’s daughter sees him as a superhero and wants to do what he does. In the future he’ll support whatever she wants to do. “With me being a fairly liberal singer-songwriter, she’ll probably be the captain of the Young Republicans in high school,” he jokes. “But whatever, I’ll just do my best.” It’s almost completely dark out now with the exception of a distant glow from the skyscrapers downtown and the dimly lit street lamps placed evenly along the park’s path. The wind has picked up, and William shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them warm. I’m starting to feel the chill myself, so I ask William one last question: What do you hope to accomplish? He’s quiet for a moment, the first silent moment in half an hour. “I just want to write music that can be of assistance,” he says. “That’s what I had.” NKD

THE PLAYLIST C

Dan Geraghty of Hollywood Ending takes us through his current top tracks.

TRACKS 1. “BLURRED LINES” - ROBIN THICKE FEAT. T.I. AND PHARRELL WILLIAMS

6. “UP IN THE AIR” - 30 SECONDS TO MARS

2. “CHLOE (YOU’RE THE ONE)” - EMBLEM 3

7. “SUMMERTIME” - MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

3. “PHOTOGRAPH” - NICKELBACK

8. “RIOT GIRL” - GOOD CHARLOTTE

4. “GET LUCKY” - DAFT PUNK

9. “I AM A GOD” - KANYE WEST FEAT. GOD

5. “WALKS LIKE RIHANNA” - THE WANTED

10. “GRAVITY” - JOHN MAYER

INDUSTRY WRITE-IN e

THE MAKING OF TANDEM By Mark Shami

andem was an idea that started to boil in 2011 between my twin sister, Kelly Shami, and I. We grew up around our familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business in fashion, and grew an obsession for it. Tandem came to life in the winter of 2012 when we released our first preview line. The line consisted of crew necks, snapbacks and graphic tees. The overwhelming response left me at a crossroads. I had been a touring musician for the last five years and I had been running the line from the road. After careful planning and thinking, I left the road to focus on Tandem. This year we released our first full line on June 28. To kick off the launch we premiered the line at VENUE, a trade show catered to street wear brands from all over the world. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just getting started.

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YOUNG HOLLYWOOD h

CHRISTOPH SANDERS 18

featuring

CHRISTOPH SANDERS STEVIE LYNN JONES

Words by Nicole Mazza » Photos by Catherine Powell When Christoph Sanders was a kid, he never imagined he’d end up working with Tim Allen of Home Improvement fame. “I grew up with three TV channels with a little rabbit ear antenna thing,” Chris remembers. “And so whenever we got ABC I would watch [Home Improvement],” he says. “It was so big in the ’90s, it was kind of hard not to watch it.” Now, at 25, Chris plays Kyle Anderson on Tim Allen’s ABC’s sitcom Last Man Standing. Chris has been acting since he was 9 years old in his home state of North Carolina. He belonged to a company at the state theater, Flat Rock Playhouse, for eight years. “My mom and dad were just like, ‘Hey you want to take a theater class?’ I did and it just kind of went from there,” he says. “There’s nothing else I really enjoyed as much. I did all the types of activities and stuff and this is the one that stuck.” Though he thought about going to college to study film or engineering, he decided to move to Los Angeles at 18. It was there he landed the role as Ned Banks on the CBS drama Ghost Whisperer for two years. Only a year later, after the series ended, Chris booked the role of Kyle on Last Man Standing. Though Chris’ character, the assistant to Allen’s character at a sporting goods store in Colorado, was originally supposed to be a minor character, he recently signed on for the third season. Chris grew up doing comedic theater and performing in cabarets, and was featured in an episode of Disney’s Pair of Kings, but he never studied comedy. Now, he’s getting the best comedic training on the set of Last Man Standing. “We’re all kind of colleagues and they know a lot more than I do so I’m just trying to learn,” Chris says of working with his co-stars Allen, Hector Elizondo and Nancy Travis. “They’re really good about teaching you stuff.” Chris is enjoying his summer off in New York before filming picks up again in L.A. in mid-August. He plans to go to Israel to visit his girlfriend’s family and enjoy down time with her while it lasts. “She goes back [to Israel] twice a year, and most of the time she goes back I’m not able to go back because of work, but this year our hiatuses both lined up,” he says. “Last year was a little harder because I was shooting here and she was shooting on a show in Chicago, so it was a lot of us kind of bouncing back and forth.”

Balancing two demanding schedules with their personal lives isn’t easy for Chris and his girlfriend. “I think balance-wise it’s just trying not to talk about work as much as possible when we get back, when we do see each other,” he says. Chris has found that it’s not easy to escape work while living in L.A. “The majority of the time if you’re going to be in a successful position acting whether it’s theater, film or whatever it is, pretty much all your friends and the people you hang out with, the majority of them are going to be in the same, you know?” he says. “It just happens that way. That’s one thing that I like about New York a lot, is that there’s so many other fields here that are prominent. It’s not just about Broadway or theater. There’s people that aren’t in the art industry, which is really nice.”

“I’M JUST TRYING TO LEARN.” CHRISTOPH SANDERS

When he’s not working, Chris enjoys checking out the music scene, surfing and mechanics. “As a kid I liked taking stuff apart,” he says. “My dad rode motorcycles. I have a motorcycle which is kind of nice because I can talk about it with Tim because he’s a pretty hard-core gear head,” Chris says. “He’s got like 40 cars. He has a warehouse that’s his production studio but it’s also kind of like an airplane hanger. It’s like a car show.” For Chris, things have come full circle from watching Tim Allen in his youth to working beside him. “You see them on TV your whole life and especially as a kid, and then in the blink of an eye all those barriers drop down and it’s like, ‘Oh wow you guys are just a bunch of talented, funny people.’” he says. “It’s nice.” NKD

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STEVIE LYNN JONES

YOUNG HOLLYWOOD h

Words by Stacy Magallon » Photos by Catherine Powell If Stevie Lynn Jones hadn’t chopped off all her hair at age 12, she might not have had an acting career. When she was a child Stevie was a springboard diver, and her naturally blonde hair was tinted by chlorine, so a haircut was necessary. Stevie stood out from other preteen girls with long, luscious locks, and when she was 12 a talent scout discovered her. Today, at 17, Stevie’s experience in acting includes commercials, pilots, theater and a role on NBC’s new drama, Crisis. I meet Stevie in the middle of Times Square. It’s a cool spring morning in New York City, and as a born and raised California girl, the weather is a little chilly for her taste. We sit at a red table surrounded by folding chairs on the corner of 45th Street and Broadway. It’s a busy day as usual, and a few feet away construction workers drill into the sidewalk. “I’m going to try and see if I can talk over that,” Stevie says, laughing over the noise. While growing up in Hermosa Beach, Calif., Stevie spent her time doing almost every extracurricular activity possible. When she wasn’t acting in a school play, she was swimming. Or dancing. Or doing gymnastics. “Diving helped with my acting,” Stevie says. “Whenever you dive, there’s someone to correct it. It’s very much like acting. When you make a mistake, a director corrects

student and high school outcast who is estranged from her father, played by Dermot Mulroney. “I always seem to play the strong, mean girl role,” Stevie says, smiling. “Maybe people think I have a mean-looking face.” She explains that Beth Ann isn’t necessarily mean — her coldness is a result of her difficult upbringing and poor relationship with her dad. The ensemble casts includes Gillian Anderson, Rachael Taylor and James Lafferty, and popular Nickelodeon stars Max Schneider and Halston Sage. “There’s all kinds of twists and turns and plot lines all within the pilot,” Stevie says. “It’s like four different shows in one. You can never fully understand what’s going on.” The show is a drama that matches the intensity of Stevie’s favorite shows, which include CSI, Law and Order and Criminal Minds. The cast will begin filming the full series by the end of July, though the pilot will not be premiere until this winter. When I express my lack of patience, Stevie laughs. “Oh, tell me about it,” she says, with a hint of aggravation in her voice. “But this way, the show will be able to play all our episodes consecutively in a row instead of getting split up.” Even though she is uncertain about the show’s air date, one thing Stevie is sure of is her decision not to go to college. She graduated from high school in December after taking online classes for the past three years. When I ask about potential college plans, Stevie grins widely and innocently says, “No. Nope. Not at all.” For Stevie, television sets are classrooms and experiences are lessons. “This is my college. This is what I’m doing,” she says. “I love acting. I don’t love going to school. Plus, it’s so much cheaper.” Because Stevie’s lifestyle isn’t exactly average, her social circle consists of people who share her passion for acting. Today, most of her friends are people she’s met through acting classes. “Not everyone in L.A. is fake, I promise,” Stevie says, smiling. “There are a lot of good people.” Stevie is set on acting. She wants nothing more than to stay active in the industry, and there is nothing she loves more than giving and receiving energy from a fellow actor during a scene. “I just want to act,” Stevie says. “And if I can get through next couple of years NKD without going to college, I think I’ll be good.”

“I ALWAYS SEEM TO PLAY THE STRONG, MEAN GIRL ROLE.” STEVIE LYNN JONES

you.” Along with everything else, she was a good student. But when Stevie’s mother introduced her to Turner Classic Movies, her life changed. It opened her eyes to television and created a new passion on top of all her after school hobbies. Stevie has been acting ever since. In early May, NBC announced Crisis had been picked up. The show follows students at a prep school in Washington D.C. These kids are the sons and daughters of Washington’s power elite, including CEOs, company presidents and ambassadors. When they go on a field trip, the students are abducted and taken hostage. Stevie’s character, Beth Ann Gibson, is a scholarship

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THE WANTED June 2, Dutchess Stadium (Wappingers Falls, N.Y.)

NAKED EYE PHOTO: CATHERINE POWELL

RASCAL FLATTS June 15, Comcast Theatre (Hartford, Conn.)

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK June 16, Barclays Center (New York City)

NAKED EYE PHOTO: CATHERINE POWELL

NKD LOCAL , NEW YORK

AGAINST THE CURRENT 28

featuring

AGAINST THE CURRENT YOUNG RISING SONS TAUK

Words by Stacy Magallon » Photos by Catherine Powell Against the Current may be made up of five high school students, but as a whole, the band proudly lacks the naivete of most kids their age. Though the members of the band haven’t all known each other for long, they can all agree on one thing — music has always been their calling. “In the fourth grade my brother took me to a New Found Glory concert and I told myself, ‘Goddamn, that’s really cool,’” says guitarist Jeremy Rompala. “I immediately told my dad I needed a guitar.” That same year, Jeremy formed friendships with soon-to-be band mates Daniel Gow (guitar) and Will Ferri (drums). The moment they met, Jeremy “fell in love with them.” Daniel Geraghty, a member of pop-rock band Hollywood Ending, introduced vocalist Chrissy Costanza to Dan, Will, Jeremy and bassist Joe Simmons a few years later. Chrissy, who had been active in musical theater for years, fit perfectly into the mix to form Against The Current. The Poughkeepsie, N.Y. based ensemble have been rocking strong for roughly two years, though the three original members have been playing at the town’s Chance Theater since the fifth grade. It wasn’t until the summer of 2012 that Against The Current officially began to release music, which included a cover of Owl City’s “Good Time” with popular YouTube musician Alex Goot, and their first original single, “Thinking.” Now the band is working on plans to keep moving forward from here. Their YouTube arsenal consists of covers of songs by Mariah Carey and Demi Lovato, to name a few. Aside from Alex Goot, their collaborations have included popular vocalist Sam Tsui and producer Kurt Schneider, though they’re hoping to distance themselves from YouTube in the future. While covers can be big hits, Against The Current’s goal is to release more original work than anything else. “Covers help get our name out there and it helps people get a feel of our music,” Jeremy says. Chrissy agrees. “They help us define ourselves,” she says. But overall, Against The Current want to break out of their YouTube shell and create music that sounds like their own. The band, however, does not feel trapped within the world of YouTube covers or collaborations because their fan base constantly craves new, original music. “YouTube artists are more of what you see on the screen, and they don’t tour often,” Will says. “We’re trying to bridge the gap between being YouTube artists and in-the-scene kind of artists.” Against The Current want to achieve the best of both worlds, as well as hit the road as soon as possible. Two of the five band members have graduated from high school, which creates more obstacles ahead. “I graduated in January because I’m smart and stuff,” Joe says, laughing. Chrissy wrapped up her senior

year last month. Jeremy, Will and Dan are eager to start their last year of high school, but they know they’ll need to skip a few days to keep the band a priority. “We skipped school today, actually,” Dan says before Chrissy jokes about how he needs to be home by dinner. “We can’t do as much as we would like to,” Will says. “It’s definitely hard on all of us, but we’re doing what we can right now.” Now that summer is here, Against The Current are looking forward to a few months of focused work on the band. Chrissy is college-bound in the fall, but she’s set on staying local to keep the band alive. If Against The Current really takes off, online classes will be her fallback, but for now she plans to study business. “A lot of people are confused as to why I don’t study music,” she says. “But music is already such a big part of my life. I don’t need to study it too.”

“WE’RE TRYING TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN BEING YOUTUBE ARTISTS AND IN-THE-SCENE artists.” WILL FERRI

As their musical journey continues, the band knows they have the support of their family behind them. When they first started in the local music scene and were responsible for selling tickets to the first couple of show themselves, those tickets went straight to their families. “They’ve also blown lots of money on our fancy equipment,” Will says, laughing. Against The Current continue to work on establishing their own sound, and they hope to release an EP by the end of the year. The band has mapped out who they want to be, and where they’d like to end up in the future. “Maybe one of these days we’ll end up selling out Madison Square Garden,” Chrissy says, smiling. NKD

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YOUNG RISING SONS

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Words by Alex Lane » Photos by Catherine Powell Young Rising Sons are leaving their Glory Days behind them and finally doing what feels right. After their last few attempts missed the mark, Young Rising Sons are finally hitting their stride. Formerly Glory Days, this band is a revamped, revitalized and re-imagined rock outfit from New Jersey, featuring Steve Patrick (drums), Andy Tongren (lead vocals, guitar), Julian Dimagiba (bass, vocals) and Dylan Scott (vocals, guitar). Glory Days were a pop-rock group with an upbeat, fluffy sound. Their pop-y sound caught the attention of a younger demographic, and their audience became a devoted fan base spanning the globe. Despite their successes with Glory Days, the guys’ songwriting, sound and vibe matured and no longer fit the old band, which is the reason they reevaluated their music and assumed a new name. “It got to the point where we were like, ‘This isn’t Glory Days anymore. These aren’t Glory Days songs,’” Andy says. ”We were like, ‘Let’s just do it,’ because I don’t think that any of us were really sold on Glory Days anymore. A lot of it had been just writing and playing what other people had told us to do. We wanted to write real music about how we felt, and who we were as people. I think that’s why we made the change. Glory Days had kind of run its course.” The guys are confident that Young Rising Sons are here to stay. Now, they say, they are writing and performing music they believe in. Their seven song debut EP Highway Town (released February 2013) is a departure from what Glory Days fans might have expected. While Glory Days had a floating, fluffy, pop sound, Young Rising Sons juxtaposes their old sound with a new edgy sound. The guys have matured lyrically — their opening track “Brokenhearted Travelin’ Man” tells the story of a distraught man looking for answers. The chorus, catchy hook and bluesy guitar solo introduce listeners to the capabilities of the band. Musically, each track on the EP displays their sound in a different way. The contrast between the tracks “Barcelona” and “Don’t Pass Me By” shows the range of technique and ability in Andy’s voice. A few of the songs on the album have pop undertones, but the new focus of the music is certainly on the stripped down, grittiness of rock and roll.

“WE WANT EVERY SHOW TO BE A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT EVERY TIME WE PLAY THE SAME SONG.” JULIAN DIMAGIBA

The guys plan to continue keeping their music true to themselves. “We just want to write and play, just basically get ourselves out there and play as much as we can right now,” Julian says. “We’ve spent a lot of time working on stuff, so we can’t wait to show it to people.” Between old fans being faithful to the new band and the band’s philosophy, the guys are hopeful about their future. “Certain people definitely followed us over,” Julian says of the band’s transition. “Just because they really liked everything that we did. Which is awesome.” “Those people I don’t even consider like, fans, anymore. I consider them more friends at this point,” Andy adds. “They’ve believed in us the whole time.” With a change in concept and genre, having fans already waiting for their new release was huge for Young Rising Sons. Now, because they’re playing more bluesy rock, the guys are developing their fan base through a grassroots approach. They’re relying heavily on word of mouth for their branding and marketing, and they’ve made a bold choice for their recent release: they are giving it away for free. “It’s easy to spread the word when something is free,” Andy says. Julian agrees. “It’s an easy way to get your stuff in everyone’s hands,” he says. “They can listen to it in their cars and with their friends, and then they tell their friends about it.” The guys say the other big difference between their last band and their current project is the audible difference between their recorded music and live shows. “It’s different because we don’t use any tracks when we play live, because it kind of takes the real element out of a live performance, “Andy says. “There are factors on our album that are not in our live set.” Julian adds, “Our main priority is to have that very raw, not polished, feel. We want every show to be a little bit different every time we play the same songs.” Diversifying their sets and doing things independently are just a few ideas the guys have learned during their careers. “With this kind of music, and in this day and age, I think there is so much you can do on your own,” Andy says. Steve says that many artists today are able to do it on their own, but more importantly, they are able to succeed on their own. “Macklemore. He and Ryan Lewis are still unsigned, and they are one of the biggest acts out right now,” Steve says. “So if anyone has the argument like, ‘Oh, we need to get signed,’ no you don’t.” Because the band has already gained a huge following through social media, they say don’t need a team of managers and publicists behind them for now. “Our demographic is the planet,” Julian says. The guys are willing to put the work in to achieve their dreams. “We are just going to write as many rock and roll songs as we can, and get out to as many people as we can, and sort of see where it takes us,” Julian says. Andy adds, “We are sort of in an interesting stage right now because we don’t really have a fool proof plan that is going to get us to where we want to be, other than hard work.” Steve chimes in and says, “Nowadays that’s all it takes. You just have to be in the right place, right time, and keep working.” NKD

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YOUNG RISING SONS

Q&A

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How did the band start?

What is your new album, Homunculus (2013), like?

Me, Charlie and A.C. [Carter, keyboard] all grew up together, so we’ve been playing music together since seventh grade. We’ve always had some form of a band throughout all that time, different people, different names. When we got to the end of high school we were all going off to different colleges but we knew we kind of wanted to keep it going. Every time we’d come home from college we’d set up a show here and there, then once we all graduated we just became more serious, and Isaac joined the group almost two years ago.

It’s pretty much the perfect representation of what the band sounds like right now. It’s pretty epic, actually.

How did TAUK take off? We toured a little bit, and then we decided we wanted to do all instrumental stuff, so we recorded an EP and took some time to figure out what we really wanted to do with the band and figure out what direction we wanted to take with it. At that point it was more serious. We were done with school, and we were like, “Alright, let’s focus on this.” So once we decided to go all instrumental, it kind of set a path for us. We had known Isaac from before and we brought him in to play with the band, and instantly … he kind of fit right in, and then it was go time from there. We started booking more and more shows and just getting out there. We just wanted to play more and just get our music out there.

Why did you decide to be an instrumental band? I think it just kind of happened. We were actually looking for singers at one point, but still getting together and rehearsing stuff. We would still run songs and we would write things as if there would have actually been a singer, and it kind of just started to happen that we were like, “Wait a second, we can do things that we couldn’t do if we did have a singer. There’s actually something here that we can explore.” So we kind of just went with it and stuck to it. We can see there being a singer eventually on some things maybe here and there. We’re not against the idea, but right now we still feel like there’s a lot of ground we haven’t covered just staying instrumental.

How do you define your sound? I’d say it’s instrumental rock fusion. It’s definitely rock, pretty much all the time. With a kiss of jazz. We have a really hard time describing our music. There’s a lot of different influences, but a lot of people say … it’s really cinematic and other times [people say] “That’s really jazzy” or “That’s super rock-y,” depending on what the song is.

That was the goal going in. We felt like, we’ve been doing this for a while with Isaac now, we didn’t have any recordings out with him, so we really wanted to get into the studio and show people that this is where the band is right now, which we really think we did a good job of. It’s always a good problem to have, when you’re done and you have to cut some songs from the album and it’s hard to figure out which ones to cut. We definitely ended up with more material than we needed, which makes playing shows even more fun, because then you get to play songs that didn’t even make it on the album.

Will you release those songs? We might. We’re kind of sitting on them, figuring out what we want to do with them. It’s a possibility. Never say never.

What’s different about this album from previous releases? The last instrumental album I did, so I guess that would be the first of this representation of the band, it started off that we were looking for singers, and it was just us experimenting and trying things in the studio that we really weren’t sure about. And now, the second time around, we have a better idea of what context we want to put this instrumental thing in, and we’re just tighter in the band. It’s an actual idea of what we’re going for, rather than just being like, “Let’s go for it and try it.”

What’s next for you? We’re about to play a show in Brooklyn, then we head to Summer Camp Festival next week. These coming weeks should be pretty cool, we’re playing in Westchester tomorrow after Brooklyn tonight, then we’re going out to Summer Camp Music Fest and then hitting some spots out there, like Chicago, St. Louis, so doing a little mini run. Then we’ve got some more festivals coming up in the summer, FloydFest, Mazfest, which is a smaller one, and Destination Moon. In July we have a residency in Brooklyn, so we’ll be playing there pretty much every week. Definitely [playing in] New York a bunch. NKD

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CONOR MAYNARD Words & Photos by Catherine Powell

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CONOR MAYNARD *

CONOR MAYNARD’S MUSIC CAREER STARTED WITH ONE SCREAMING GIRL. NOW, THERE ARE OVER ONE MILLION OF THEM. I meet Conor a few hours before he’s set to perform at The Marlin Room at Webster Hall in New York City on a warm June afternoon. Outside, a line of girls stretches down the block, even though doors for the pop star’s show won’t open for another four hours. Conor shakes my hand as I sit down beside him on a red leather couch in the corner of the room. Though he’s dressed casually in a white T-shirt, black jeans and sneakers, nothing about Conor’s life is casual. Conor was born on November 21, 1992 in Brighton, England, and early on, his parents noticed he enjoyed performing. When he was younger, he was often caught singing the Barney theme song in public waiting rooms as if no one was there. As he got older Conor became more interested in acting and ignored singing for quite some time. When he was around 10 years old he began taking acting classes at a drama school on weekends, but no one at his regular school knew what he was doing. Eventually, he signed up for singing and dance classes so he wouldn’t feel left out at drama school. “My singing class was literally me just messing around for an hour,” Conor says. “I didn’t listen to what anyone said, I just did what I wanted.” “It wasn’t until after my voice broke ... so last week,” he jokes. “Just kidding. My voice broke when I was 15 or 16.” That was when he started to realize he had a unique voice. At this point, a few of his friends knew he could sing, but they didn’t really react to it. He recalls a specific instance where he was walking down the street with a friend singing. A girl a few steps ahead heard him and asked him to sing again. He did, and she was the first girl to scream in Conor’s face. “That reaction made me realize that people

might like my voice to that level,” he says. The following day, the girl got everyone in their class interested. Conor was being asked to sing for people at lunch every day, so he decided to start recording himself. “It was just so I could have time to eat and not starve,” he jokes. He took two video game microphones, taped them to his bedpost to make a microphone stand and plugged them into his computer. “The more I recorded, the more I got used to it,” he says.

Conor they wanted to fly him out to America to meet with him, but Conor was skeptical. He asked for proof that they were really Ne-Yo’s team. A few weeks later, Conor got a text saying Ne-Yo wanted to Skype with him. He got the chat invitation at 1:30 a.m. and “prayed it wasn’t a naked man.” But the call was in fact from Ne-Yo. “I was trying not to scream,” Conor says, laughing. He says he was dressed “scruffy” just in case it was his friends playing a joke on him.

“MY SINGING CLASS WAS LITERALLY JUST ME MESSING AROUND FOR AN HOUR. I DIDN’T LISTEN TO WHAT ANYONE SAID, I JUST DID WHAT I WANTED.” CONOR MAYNARD

More people started asking for MP3s of Conor’s songs, and sending the large files to everyone became challenging. He decided posting videos on YouTube would be an easy way to share his covers with friends. Conor kept posting covers for about two years before anything notable happened. “Then one day out of nowhere my cover of Usher’s ‘OMG’ had over 100,000 views,” Conor says. Before that, the most views any video had was 300. He wanted to keep the hype up, so he posted his next cover: Ne-Yo’s “Beautiful Monster.” Ne-Yo’s management team saw Conor’s video, found his cell phone number of Facebook and called him. “I didn’t believe them at first, I thought it was my friends,” he says. They told

“I didn’t want to be wearing a suit,” he says. Ne-Yo told Conor he was interested in signing him and working with him in America, and all of a sudden things changed. Conor began getting contracts in the mail from the U.S., so his mom called a lawyer to look them over. The lawyer recommended that Conor be introduced to different labels in the United Kingdom. “The appeal was, ‘Who is this British kid that America is trying to take away and sign?’” he says. Eventually, Conor decided not to sign with Ne-Yo and inked a deal with Parlophone, a major U.K. label, instead. “I was under 18 when I signed, so my dad had to sign the contract too,” Conor says with a laugh. (Cont’d on page 43)

“I WASN’T JUST SOME KID THAT A MAJOR LABEL PICKED UP AND GAVE SOME SONGS TO SING. I DID THE WHOLE GRIND BY MYSELF. ON YOUTUBE. ” CONOR MAYNARD

CONOR MAYNARD *

efore he even released an album or a single, he won MTV’s “Brand New For 2012” award, which helped him get his name out to a wider audience. He released his first single, “Can’t Say No,” in the spring of 2012, and it went to No. 2 on the U.K. charts. A few months later he released his debut record, Contrast, which shot up to No. 1 in the U.K. “This whole thing was a really good accident,” Conor says. Though he ultimately passed on Ne-Yo’s offer, Conor did end up working with the rapper on Contrast. “It was obvious that we needed to work together at some point,” Conor says. When he signed to Parlophone he sent Ne-Yo and his team an email explaining that he would have had to move to America alone, which he wasn’t ready to do at 17. There were no hard feelings at all, and Conor was able to form a relationship with Ne-Yo. When he was finishing up Contrast, Conor asked Ne-Yo if he wanted to be a part of it in some way. The two got into a studio in Los Angeles together, and Ne-Yo wrote the song “Turn Around.” The original version only features Conor, but after first listen it was obvious something was missing, and Ne-Yo asked if he could sing on it. “I tried to play it cool, but inside I was screaming like a little girl,” Conor says. The song was released as Conor’s third single off the album. “[Ne-Yo] became a mentor to me,” Conor says. Though Conor is still based in the U.K., he crossed over to the United States in record time. But he doesn’t think he’s even close to conquering the country just yet. “In the U.K. there’s two major radio stations that you need to get on if you want to do well,” he says. “In America there’s 156.” It may take more time and effort, but Conor is determined to succeed here. In addition to hard work, timing is a key factor in Conor’s U.S. success. Last year the U.S. saw a second British Invasion, which brought over acts like One Direction, Cher Lloyd, Olly Murs and more from across the pond. “I think you still have to be talented to be a part of that though,” Conor says, “You can’t just walk down the street and be like, ‘I’m a British artist!’” His formula for winning over American radio stations is simple: offer something different and be polite. “I think one thing people responded to was that I

wasn’t an arrogant kid telling everyone I was amazing,” he says. “I’m surrounded by people who treat me like the same idiot I was before I got signed, which keeps me humbled.” Conor finds his trips to America extremely humbling because he’s still making a name for himself here. “In the U.K. I kind of got used to being recognized on the street,” he says. His trips here remind him that there is still so much work to be done with his career, as do his trips to other countries. He’s only been able to tackle some of mainland Europe so far, but he hopes to make his way to Australia and Asia as soon as possible. “It’s beyond amazing to go to a different country than where you’re from and have a fan base there,” Conor says. Above all the screaming girls across the globe, Conor’s biggest fans are his family. Conor is only 20 years old, and he keeps a close relationship with his parents and two younger siblings. Conor says that while he was in the process of finding a label and signing contracts, his parents were “absolutely clueless.” It was a strange time: Conor had to decide whether to stick with school or take a chance. His parents encouraged him to follow the music, and they continue to support him.

But he does want to tell his story, which is the reason he’s releasing a book in October, titled Take Off. “I wasn’t just some kid that a major label picked up and gave some songs to sing,” Conor says. “I did the whole grind by myself. On YouTube.” Unlike some pop stars today, Conor is heavily involved in the writing process. Of the 12 songs on Contrast, he co-wrote 10 of them and was able to collaborate with artists including Rita Ora and Pharrell Williams. “I like to keep myself very involved,” he says. He explains that he wants to have some input or connection to everything he performs or it wouldn’t make sense. “It needs to be something relatable for me to sing it,” Conor says of songs that are brought to him by other writers. “I need to feel something when I hear it, happy or sad.” In addition to the book, Conor is hard at work on his second album and already has his first single ready to go. “It’s a nerve-wracking experience getting ready for a second album,” he says. He wants to prove that he didn’t just “strike luck” with Contrast and that he does have much more to offer. He hopes to complete the album by the end of the year and release it in 2014.

“I’M SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE WHO TREAT ME LIKE THE SAME IDIOT I WAS BEFORE I GOT SIGNED.” CONOR MAYNARD Conor’s friends were equally supportive of his career, but it took a while for them to really understand it. “It never really hit them until I started playing on the radio or on the TV,” he says. Conor would spend many hours in the studio recording songs, and his friends nagged him with questions about when they would hear him on the radio. “I would say, ‘Oh maybe someday,’ because you never know,” Conor says. Once “Can’t Say No” hit the charts in 2012, his friends saw Conor’s potential. Even though he started on YouTube, after multiple charting singles and a No. 1 album he doesn’t consider himself a YouTube artist.

Though he’s already had a hit album in his home country and charting singles across the globe, Conor has a long list of goals, which include a No. 1 album worldwide and to sell out the O2 Arena in the U.K. “I just want to have as many people as possible listen to my music,” he says. Conor realizes he’s running late for his soundcheck, so we begin to wrap up our conversation. The room he’s playing tonight can hold 500 people, which is 19,500 less than the O2 Arena, but still 499 more than were sitting in Conor’s bedroom when this journey started. “It’s scary,” he says with a shrug, “but I think I’ve figured it out.” NKD

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MAJOR LABEL INDIE 2

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CAPITAL CITIES YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE

CAPITAL CITIES Words by Stephanie Petit » Photos by Catherine Powell

Meeting someone from Craigslist isn’t a typical way to start a band, but that’s exactly what happened when Ryan Merchant answered Sebu Simonian’s online ad. “I put out an ad as a producer,” Sebu says. “Ryan was looking for a producer to help with his solo project. We started working on music together. Of course, all that collaboration led to a lot of cool, original material and that’s why we decided to start the band.” The two frontmen formed Capital Cities and haven’t looked back. They have very similar musical backgrounds — both grew up playing multiple instruments in small bands. “In my teens, I started playing in rock bands and we covered a lot of songs, a lot of Pink Floyd and The Beatles,” Sebu says. “Ever since then I’ve been interested in songwriting and playing and recording and performing and producing.” Ryan agrees that covering other people’s material was not fulfilling enough. “From a very early age, I was more interested in writing songs than actually becoming a virtuoso piano player or learning other songs,” he says. That motivation carried into his work with Capital Cities. The duo have been putting out their music independently, including their new album, In a Tidal Wave

of Mystery. “We self-produced it,” Ryan says. “It’s all fully self-contained. We wrote it together and produced it together and played most of the instruments.” Along with being in complete control of their music, the guys of Capital Cities are in no rush to put out music before it is entirely ready to be heard. “The first thing we actually did put out was ‘Safe and Sound’ as a single,” Sebu says. “We made sure that it was as good as it could be. We actually produced that song probably 10 times before we stumbled upon the production that’s currently out. We really made sure that we had a product that we were extremely proud of and excited about to put out in the world.” “Safe and Sound” got attention on the Internet in 2011. Ryan and Sebu took notice of the fans supporting them and reached out to them. “We utilized social networks and the Internet,” Sebu says. “We were being obsessive about finding out which blogs were writing about us, which people were tweeting at us, connecting with them, thanking them and adding them to a database so when we had new material we could just blast it out to this network of people who were primed to hear Capital Cities music. I think the Internet and Facebook are initially what spread our music. It was very word of mouth.”

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MAJOR LABEL INDIE 2

The single also fared well in several European countries. The band toured through Spain and Germany and stopped in places like France, Italy and Ukraine. “The crowds [in Europe] are amazing,” Sebu says. “They’re so receptive to new music and they’re ready to party.” “Safe and Sound” was even used in an advertisement in Germany recently. “‘Safe and Sound’ is probably one of those songs that could potentially be big in multiple areas of the world,” Ryan says. The next step was getting the song to a bigger audience in the United States so the guys took the bold move of investing in a radio campaign. “It was kind of a risky endeavor because it’s not cheap to invest in a radio campaign,” Sebu says. “We felt strongly about ‘Safe and Sound’ because we’ve seen evidence of the song doing well on the radio in other countries and we were like, ‘You know what? It’s going to be successful on the radio in the U.S.’” They hired a company that got the song onto Sirius XM. “It was a huge boost to our fan base because it’s a very powerful station with a lot of listeners so that was the catalyst for everything,” Sebu says. They started getting added to bigger alternative stations including Live 105 in San Francisco. The effort really paid off when their songs caught the attention of major record companies. Although the band was a little hesitant to sign to a label, they took the chance. “To be honest, we didn’t want to sign and we wanted to stay unsigned for as long as we could,” Ryan says. “Of course, it’s the music business so when you’re presented with an opportunity that makes sense, then you have to take it.” In December of 2012, Capital Cities signed with Capitol Records, where they feel like they’re still able to keep their freedom and hands-on work with their music. “Capitol Records was very in line with what we believed we should do with our music,” Ryan says. “They basically wanted to partner up more as opposed to sign us and take over, so it’s been very much a partnership with them. It’s a very collaborative effort. It was a good thing for us.”

Although putting their album together independently was a long process, Ryan feels signing with a label happened at the right time. “We pushed it independently for a long time and so doing it independently does naturally mean it’s going to take longer,” he says. “It was definitely a gradual process for us, witnessing it start from the budding of the idea of the song to now.” The good thing about the long development process is that the guys have had plenty of time to perfect material. “We’ve been building the track listing for over two years now so we have a lot of material and we narrowed it down to about 12 songs,” Sebu says. One song entitled “Farrah Fawcett Hair,” which is about things that everyone agrees are good, such as the famous Charlie’s Angel’s hair, features several guests. Andre 3000 of Outkast does a combination of singing and rap on a verse, as does Shemika Secrest, one of Macy Gray’s back-up singers. They also brought in Frank Tavares, the funding credits voice from National Public Radio, for an amusing part. “In the song there’s basically a listing off of all these things that are undeniably good and we thought it would be funny to have this guy Frank that has this amazing voice actually list those things off,” Sebu says. While they wait to see how the album is received, Capital Cities continue to tour, which includes stops at big festivals such as Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Firefly Music Festival in Delaware. “We’ve been lucky to have landed some really cool time slots in a few festivals starting with [Dcode Fest in] Madrid,” Sebu says. “We lucked out with our spot on the stage. It was set up time between The Kooks and The Killers. It was on a side stage but everybody gravitated toward that stage while we played so it was definitely a surreal experience.” Being part of the lineups for these festivals with such big bands has also been bizarre and fantastic for the guys. “[It is surreal] playing with other bands who at one time seemed on such a higher level than us,” Ryan says. “Then all of a sudden, they’re our peers and we’re playing shows in time slots right next to them and holding our own.” Capital Cities are excited about their future prospects. “We’re just at the beginning of what ‘Safe and Sound’ is going to do,” Ryan says. “We have no idea how big this is going to get and what that means as far as our schedule for the next two years.” They do promise to keep making music and head out on the road to promote the album, including a visit to Asia for the first time and a return to Europe for a bigger scale tour. In the end, their goal is quite simple. “Just make good music,” Ryan says. “We want to be able to have our listeners feel like they’re experiencing something new and they’re hearing something fresh and unique, but at the same time have it be fun and accessible and joyous and epic.”

“TO BE HONEST, WE DIDN’T WANT TO SIGN [TO A LABEL] AND WE WANTED TO STAY UNSIGNED FOR AS LONG AS WE COULD.” RYAN MERCHANT

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MAJOR LABEL INDIE 2

YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE Words by Shina Patel » Photos by Catherine Powell

About two years ago, Sam Martin and Simon Katz hit rock bottom. “We were in a real low place,” Simon says. “We were broke and scrounging quarters to buy burritos.” The low point came when the boys’ first band together, Iglu & Hartly, fell apart. “Sam and I initially started writing after our last band disintegrated,” Simon says. “We were kind of in a low place. We decided we just needed to write and write and write, and have no expectations of what it was going to be.” The boys seem to have found a way back to the top with their current band, Youngblood Hawke, which they formed with close friends Tasso Smith, Omar Ahmed, Alice Katz and Nik Hughes. They were able to take the songs that came from their rock bottom days and use them with Youngblood Hawke. The Los Angeles-based indie-pop band may have had a rough start, but now they’re on the rise. The members of Youngblood Hawke are no musical amateurs, and they aren’t new to being in bands. Sam met Simon when he moved to Colorado for college. “[I] just kind of got sucked into the music thing, fell in love with it,” he says. Sam started writing lyrics and singing, and he and Simon formed their first group and moved to L.A. Simon has been playing music in various bands since he was 13. His original project with Sam showed some initial success, especially in Europe, but eventually the group fell apart. Tasso, who

took violin lessons throughout his adolescence, started learning guitar around age 12. He met Simon around that time, and they began playing and writing songs together. Years later they regrouped for Youngblood Hawke. Omar learned to play bass by watching his older brother and many YouTube tutorials. “[I] kinda grew up around music,” he says. Nik started taking drum lessons around age 6 and majored in music performance at George Mason University. After graduation he moved to L.A. and met Simon and Sam, and they all hit it off. Alice had always sung in choir, but it wasn’t until her early 20s when she met Simon that she fell in love with music and writing songs. “I discovered [writing songs] as an avenue of expression for myself,” she says. The group officially came together about two years ago. In April, they released their first full-length album, titled Wake Up. The songs on the album are reflective of what the band members went through during the low points of their lives. “Our verses are very much compilations of stories and things that we have been through. But we try to do it with an optimistic viewpoint,” Simon says. The band was able to take these life stories and turn them into the album, which they recorded over a span of two years, and produced in a studio Simon created in his bedroom. Though the process was long, the members of Youngblood Hawke worked really well together — they

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MAJOR LABEL INDIE 2

never disagreed about what songs should be included and what direction should be taken. “We’re a family,” Simon says. Youngblood Hawke are constantly writing. “It’s almost like our therapy to write songs and get out whatever emotions we’re dealing with at the time,” Simon says. But they’re not necessarily writing to make a new album — they’re simply “writing to write.” Although the band tours frequently they still find time for songwriting. “I think it is a little bit more difficult but you can definitely get out ideas and create demos,” Sam says of writing while on tour. Simon usually starts with a basic template of melodies and sounds, and then Sam looks through notebooks he keeps, which are full of lyrics and verses that could be used.

“EVERYTHING ON [WAKE UP] CAME FROM A REALLY DARK PLACE.” SAM MARTIN

It’s all about finding the right match, and everybody brings in their own sounds and ideas. Youngblood Hawke say that, so far, they have received positive reception for Wake Up from their audience. They really hoped listeners would connect to the songs the same way they connected with them. The band knows their bright, energetic songs can be seen as happy and upbeat, and they

think some people may get the wrong impression from them. “Some people think we’re this ‘happy go lucky, nothing matters’ kind of band, when in reality everything on this record came from a really dark place and it’s just an optimistic view point that we have,” Sam says. “It’s optimistic music because of how dark the start was.” “At the end of the day you just have to have some resolve for whatever you’re going through,” he adds. “To feel that things are going to get better you have to believe that things are going to change. At the end of the day we just needed to know, ‘Oh shit. There is something on the other side of this.’” They feel that as they have met more people, fans have been able to connect to the songs and see past the upbeat melodies to the meaning of their songs. The band plans to tour this summer, and for the rest of the year. They are playing several festivals before they head to the U.K., Australia, Europe and Japan. Their European career is about to take off, their full-length album will be available in the U.K. soon and their single is about to go platinum in Australia. Sam and Simon have been to Asia with their previous project, but this fall they’ll go with Youngblood Hawke for the first time. “They’re just the most amazing people over there. They just fucking love music,” Sam says of his previous visit to Japan. Though they’re not quite sure what to expect in these foreign countries, Simon and Sam know one thing for sure — they won’t have to scrounge for money to buy burritos anymore. Some new bands dive in with high hopes and unrealistic expectations, but the same can’t be said for Youngblood Hawke. The core of what they are is a group of talented musicians, and they just want to, according to Sam, “evolve, write better songs and become better musicians.” “The expectations are really on ourselves,” Simon says. Sam adds that their main expectation is, “… just to continue this as long as possible. We just want a chance to do what we love.” NKD

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