Young The Giant
Dec 6, 2010
The California band Young The Giant is a five-man musical melting pot, comprised of: Sameer Gadhia (lead singer), Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar/vocals), Payam Doostzadeh (bass) and Francois Comtois (drums/vocals). Possessing a well-honed song craft that usually belongs to far more seasoned musicians, the band's members only range in age from 20 to 22. Young the Giant present a diverse set of musical ideas, one that's as varied as their ethnic backgrounds.
Young the Giant "brings all of the music together," Gadhia said. "We draw on different experiences and influences and it really comes down to our backgrounds - what we listened to, the lyrics that affected us, the stories that affected us. My family's rhetoric as well as their melodies affected me a lot. I think that goes for everyone (in the band). What they grew up listening to has a lot to do with what they listen to now."
The eclectic sound of Young The Giant has been compared with The Strokes, Vampire Weekend and Kings of Leon. "We don't try to go too gimmicky or anything like that," Gadhia said. "We don't try and force it. If it's there, it's there. It happens."
The band's self-titled debut album was released digitally last month and has a physical release of January 25th.
Young the Giant, gained some buzz after a performance at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, during 2009 and caught the attention of Roadrunner Records. They were signed to a record deal after being courted by several labels after opening for Kings Of Leon at the Chicago House Of Blues.
For most of the past year and a half, when they weren't on tour, the musicians lived in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, writing and recording their full-length debut. They also acquired a new name. Formerly known as the Jakes, they began calling the band Young The Giant at the beginning of 2010. "We started when we were 16, 17 years old, and our true writing capabilities came later," says Gadhia. "We wanted to play under a new moniker that all of us felt equally comfortable with." (Gadhia also explains that the name is purposefully nonsensical, a "leftfield idea" meant to evoke curiosity. On the band's MySpace blog, he points to the Brothers Grimm fairytale, "The Young Giant," as a happy accident.) To begin writing, they moved into a house together on the ocean in Newport Beach, which they say provided inspiration for the album. "It's about freedom, making music that we like playing," says Comtois. "That's what we experienced at the beach. Listening to the album represents to me what we've been through over the past couple of years." Gadhia agrees: "A lot of the ideas on the record spawned from our time there-that concept of eternal summer, of youthfulness."
The band began working with producer Joe Chiccarelli, whose work for artists like the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and My Morning Jacket they admired. (My Morning Jacket's Bo Koster guests on keys on several of the album's tracks; Roger Manning, keyboardist for Beck, plays here on "Your Side.") They tracked most of the songs live at Sunset Sound Studios in LA, which they found initially daunting but were pleased with the results.
"Joe demands a lot of his players," says Comtois. "There was an element of us stepping up." Says Gadhia, "He brought out the best in us in a lot of ways. I don't think anyone can compete with his level of precision. I think it really worked because there was a combination of his skill with our energy."
As fond as they are of their work in the studio, they find themselves equally drawn to playing live, another venue for them to work out their ideas.
"The road is like being on a constant adventure," Comtois says. "I look at it like the way Kerouac saw America, going from town to town. If you're in a band, that's the closest thing to that type of lifestyle and that energy carries over to the live show, especially because we're all friends. We so enjoy playing with each other and we've been jamming for so long, even if we're on stage, it's the act of playing music together first and foremost that's so awesome."
The single, "My Body" impacts Alternative on January 11th.