The Young Wild, California’s new buzz band, are currently on tour promoting their EP For Now Not Forever and their debut album, which will hopefully be released early next year. Bryan B. William (vocals, guitar), Gareth Moore (bass) and Brandon Zedaker (drums) met in college in San Diego and ended up combining their talents to form The Young Wild in 2014 – a band mixing synth-pop with 80’s rock and sprinkling in a good dose of soul.
Blank Newspaper recently got to interview Bryan William. Here’s what we talked about:
BLANK: You’re called The Young Wild. You are a young band, but how wild are you?
BW: I don’t know how wild we actually are. We’re kind of just finding out that a lot of people have a different idea of what The Young Wild are supposed to look like and sound like. We haven’t thought too deeply about the philosophy of the band name. But we’re not bored and old. I think we’re semi-wild and still young. We’re trying to go on tour and get a record done, so yeah it’s fun along the way, but it is a lot of work. So we play hard, but we work really hard, too. So you have to walk the line between those two worlds, otherwise I don’t know how we would make it on a tour. We would probably fall apart after a couple of weeks if we were a party crew.
But we definitely try to charge the music. So I think the music is the most synonymous thing with our band name as opposed to our personalities as individuals. The things we want to hear are loud and very accessible for an audience and catchy and quick and to the point. And in a lot of ways reminiscent of some music that we heard growing up and any instruments that people used to make that music – old synthesizers and things like that. That’s kind of a staple for us: using old gear from the era we grew up in and try to infuse it with some of those ideas of a modern and soulful yet pop-driven take on it.
BLANK: Aside from that, how is your music different? How do you expect to break through the indie-rock music clutter?
BW: We have a really big emphasis on the strength of the song in its most basic form – before it’s all dressed up – that’s really important to us. Before live drums and lots of vocals and guitar, it should exist in a really simple way and kind of work for any type of person. In our latest pursuits of the type of sound we’re going for, we’re trying to think a little bit more like people in the hip hop circle – in terms of sampling, stacking vocals and really making the tracks bump. So as opposed to listening to a Velvet Underground record, or a Rolling Stones record, or something that’s very organic and indie-driven, we’re really liking the new Dr. Dre record and we listen to Kendrick Lamar. But we don’t just like the message these artists are putting forth, but also the production is something we really, really enjoy. But at the end of a The Young Wild show I don’t think anyone will feel like they just went to an R. Kelly concert. We’re still a rock band at the end of the day, but we definitely have a soft spot for soulful music and a lot of gospel chops as far as the drums go. But like hip hop producers, we’ll often sample and slice it and put music together. We’re kind of getting an interesting hybrid between that and sort of clunky old piano/stomp rock elements. It’s sort of a fusion of those things. But none of it is worth doing, unless the song kind of works on its own.
BLANK: The Young Wild was just founded last year, but you’ve already been signed by a label (Fairfax Recordings). Some bands struggle for years to get to that point. What has put you in the fast lane?
BW: Brandon, Gareth and I have been in and out of bands in the last seven or eight years. We spent a lot of time working on music and putting out things on our own. But only in the last year have we been focusing our efforts on the music and the presentation of The Young Wild as a project. We’re applying everything we’ve learned over the last five, six, seven years and putting our best foot forward in every sense of the way – whether it’s how we’re presenting the group or being really hands on with some of the production we’ve been doing as far as film, album art and the overall esthetics. We really like being involved in the creation process of those things. And the same could be said about the production of our music. I think it was taking a lot of the things we’ve learned and the relationships and connections we’ve made in southern California over the years and applying those toward not a super group, but a more focused effort to make something specific and great.
BLANK: You write the majority of the songs. Are your songs based on your own life experience or are they fiction, stories you make up?
BW: The collection of songs we’re currently working on all exist in a sort of realm of words I would use. And encounters – it’s about momentum, it’s about going somewhere – sometimes blindly, sometimes for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. I kind of create a framework a lot of the time from which I can pull different life experiences and made up things. But in the end I think we can all relate to them: relationships, friends, making mistakes. Rarely ever do I sit down and finish something. It’s usually pieced together. I’m trying to make an effort not to discard some of the old stuff, so some of the songs are really frankensteined together from old voice memos from three years ago and other things I come up with the day we’re cutting the vocals.
BLANK: Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx once said “Writing comes from reading and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” What do you do to keep improving your songwriting over time?
BW: My parents were songwriters, so I watched them work on it. They showed me that it takes time. Sometimes every writer has those moments of clarity and you are able to communicate specific, interesting ideas. And then the rest of the time you spend trying to get back to that spot, like ‘Oh I was really on a roll there, but it only happens about every six months.’ So watching my parents work on song and composition, I learned that it was a daily practice and it was something they worked on every day as opposed of waiting for the right moment. That was an important piece for me.
I really like reading lyrics sometimes, like Stevie Wonder or Bob Dylan. Chris Martin of Coldplay gave a really cool interview on BBC and he was talking about his ability to just say what he feels. And if you’re familiar with Coldplay’s music, sometimes he communicates the most simple things. So those are all just good reminders for me that the words are right in front of you, you just have to go fish and find them and communicate them simply and make it relatable and digestible. And like my parents do, spend as much time as I can give to just try and find something. And having the courage to do that is the hardest part.
BLANK: How do you measure your success?
BW: I don’t know. Usually once something is successful, I’m not interested in it anymore. I’m very process-oriented. I’m interested in the craft of making something, and once it’s done it’s sort of like ‘Well, what’s next?’ So I don’t know. If I’ve surrounded myself with good people and we’re all working toward a common goal – that to me seems idealistic.
BLANK: Are you more nervous or excited to play in Nashville, which is known as Music City?
BW: I think we’re more excited. We’re usually only nervous about the first show of the tour, which I think is pretty natural. I think every band is nervous about the first show of their tour because they’re trying out a lot of new things. But we’re really excited for Nashville. It’s a great music town and I’ve spent more time there than I have anywhere else in the South, actually. I think Nashville will be our fifth or sixth show on this tour and we’ll be hitting our stride and we hope to bring our best and keep up with the pace of what’s happening in that town musically. We even have a few days off there.
BLANK: What do we have to look forward to in your live performance?
BW: A lot of the songs we’ll play will be on our debut LP, which will be released early next year, hopefully. And we have a new song that came out on Friday, so we’re excited for people to hear that. Some band jam moments. I’m not going to make any dumb jokes to the audience. We’re just going to play music and try to meet as many new people as possible. It’s a great town for music.
The Young Wild will play with ZZ Ward at Marathon Music Works in Nashville on Friday September 4, 2015. To listen to their new song “Not A One” click here.
