This Wild Life

Acoustic rock duo This Wild Life are heading to Australia this October to support Mayday Parade on their tenth anniversary tour for A Lesson In Romantics. The duo features Kevin Jordan on vocals and Anthony Del Grosso on guitar. It has been quite a journey so far and Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles spoke to Kevin Jordan about the tour and the success of their album Low Tides.

Great news that you’re coming to Australia to support Mayday Parade on their tour which is a great way to finish the back part of the year?
Yeah, we’ve been wanting to get back over there and we haven’t been there since the last Soundwave Festival in 2014 maybe 2015. It has been a couple of years since we have been there and our experiences in the past are so good that we wanted to go back out there but it seems that the landscape there for touring has been difficult the last couple of years and the opportunities have not been there.

It is exciting we have toured in the States with them before and we’re fans of the band in general, they are really good guys, we feel honoured and for a band like them who are celebrating ten years of successes of a great album and the fact they even thought about inviting us out there is really cool of them. We’re excited to help them celebrate about what has been ten years of awesome music from those guys.

Does the relationship with those guys go back a long way?
We toured with them at the end of 2015, we did a full tour with them of almost forty shows and we have spent a lot of time with the guys and they were really good to us. We’ve played with bands much smaller than them that are less inviting, less friendly than them, they are really good people and I am happy that they invited us out to celebrate with them.

How would you describe The Wildlife to fans of Mayday Parade who might not know much about your band?
We met working in a record store together and we instantly bonded over a lot of the music we grew up listening to such as pop punk, screamo and when we first started the band it was meant to be a four or five piece band with someone else singing, Anthony playing drums and I’m playing guitar but after a couple of years we’ve whittled it down to just the two of us and focusing on acoustic songs and the softer side of the band.

I would think that the best explanation for what our sound is like and what we are inspired by, think about a couple of guys who grew up listening to a lot of heavier and energetic music then ended up playing really soft music on their own, I think that our sound is so far from folk it kind of lies in this interesting area of being acoustic rock in some ways. We’re further away from being a folk band than we are being a punk band even though we’re acoustic.

From a show dynamic it must be great being able to have that light and shade?
Yeah, we’re always happy to be the odd one out, these days peoples tastes are so diverse and eclectic and I think when you go out to tour people are happy to see some variation. A couple of years ago we did a tour with New Found Glory, Turnover, Turnstyle and us, I mean almost none of those bands should be touring together considering the genre that they’re in but it ended up being such a cool tour and a unique experience for the bands and fans too. We try to keep that spirit while we keep putting tours together of our own. I love standing out on tours that we are a part of.

Whittling the band down to two are you the most satisfied considering where the band is at now musically?
I think it was always meant to arrive at this destination, it took us a long time to realise what our strengths were as song writers. We both started off as drummers, just writing songs when the band first started was a steep learning curve for us. I think over a couple of years we started realising where our strength lies and have been chasing that sound ever since.

Have you been happy with how the album Low Tides has gone?
It has been really good and another big step in the band’s evolution. I’m really happy that we made the record we wanted to make. At the time our vision for it was to make a record that was dark and a lot moodier than our first record. Our first record I would describe it as up tempo and bright and Low Tides was the opposite of that with mid-tempo and slower songs, lyrically and sonically it was a lot darker.

I think after exploring both sounds of the band moving in to the next album we’ll be focusing on more uplifting tracks and definitely more on acoustic guitaring making sure that the songs are really strong, just the bare bones and a single guitar. If the song really speaks in that form then you know you really have something compelling. If the song depends on a bunch of production or bells and whistles to make it and make the idea come across then you don’t have a great song to begin with. We’re really focusing on that.

What do you forward to most about touring Australia?
We always joke around and say Australia has the best looking people on the planet, well so far as we’ve seen. It is good when you see a bunch of beautiful people but also makes you feel like some Neanderthal or something when you’re walking around!

Interview by Rob Lyon

Catch This Wild Life on tour with Mayday Parade this October