Nashville duo Keegan DeWitt and Jeremy Bullock formed Wild Cub a little over twelve months ago, combining their skills of film composition, songwriting and multi-instrumentation, and making their debut album from the intimacy of a home studio. And the subsequent response has been far from modest - PASTE Magazine, The Guardian, SPIN, and even a spot at New York Fashion Week led by Rebecca Minkoff. So what has made everyone fall in love with the tales of Youth? It’s one of those questions that they try not to ask themselves during their time of growing fame. Front man Keegan DeWitt discusses human experience and emotion, New York Fashion Week, and Gus Van Sant.
Firstly – Youth – what an incredible response for a debut album; PASTE Magazine, New York Fashion Week, SPIN, The Guardian, Topshop. Why do you think people have fallen in love with the album?
That’s one of those questions that we try not to ask ourselves. We just stay busy, continue to dig and pursue what excites us, and hope that people can link into it. One thing we can say though is that it’s wonderful to have that support. You can’t underestimate it. There are so many people out there making music just hoping to have people hear it – period. So to have it reach so many people is deeply satisfying. It certainly helps to sustain you when you sit down to write and record that next song - you know it’s gonna be a journey.
Speaking of love – you touch on themes of love throughout Youth, but not in a way that is normally over-done or floral. Do you think that the best understated love songs emerge from a state of ecstasy or heartbreak?
The artists that I’ve always really admired have understood that there is no such thing as literal feelings in the human experience. You are never entirely sad, or specifically happy. There is such density to each of those feelings, and trying to capture a bit of that chaos and mystery is the important thing. Antonioni really understood that by tackling these massive ideas, such as man’s self-destructive desires and nature, he would explore the moments in between the moments. Somewhere in between those peeks there is this lull of truthfulness, which isn’t one specific thing but a mix of multiple things. It’s the simplest prescription for pop music: happy song, sad lyrics. But there is also a continuation of that, which is…that feeling of. At the core of Youth is a quote by Jonathan Lethem which says…and I’m paraphrasing: “Youth is about what you desire and can’t have, and adulthood is about what you receive and misuse". That seemed like the perfect distillation of what we were chipping away at.
You’ve just been confirmed for the Hangout Music Festival (in May) in Alabama, playing alongside the likes of Tom Petty and Bloc Party. How does the band feel about this upcoming milestone?
At the moment there have been a lot of cool surreal moments like that. Milestones are strange. they are better to look back on rather than ahead. We are so vigilant to just keep pushing forward, making sure as many people hear the music as possible. Suddenly you look up and you think, “Well this is pretty strange". Overall though, festivals are always a blast. Mainly because it feels like a glorified summer camp, but also because we get to indulge the side of ourselves that are also huge fans of music. Bonnaroo was amazing in that we just got to go snoop around the side stage to see everyone we loved perform and how they did it. Little Dragon, SBTRKT and others...it was great to see all the amazing ways they are translating their music live.
Your background in film and sound composition has seen you compose for SXSW and Sundance features. Who would be your ideal director to work with on a feature film, in a dream scenario?
The truth is that I’m a huge fan of so many people that it’s hard to pinpoint. Gus Van Sant is a fellow Portlander that I would be honoured to work with. Probably at the top of my list would be Terrene Malick, Wong Kar Wai or a thriller by Ben Affleck.
Not many bands get an impromptu call from a designer to play during their fashion week show. How was the Rebecca Minkoff showcase at New York Fashion Week?
It was fantastic. You hear so many horror stories about the fashion world, and after living in New York and working around that industry, I’ve witnessed a lot. But that couldn’t have been less of the case with Rebecca and her crew. They were all incredible people. It was an hour before show time and they all were so kind and thoughtful. The experience itself felt a little insane. We had rushed from a show in LA at 10pm at night, flew a red eye overnight, and were playing to a massive packed tent at Lincoln Centre less than five hours later.
Your hometown of Nashville is one of the biggest music meccas in the United States. Is there much competition amongst local bands to get noticed?
Well it’s strange, not really. There are a lot of amazing artists playing different types of genres. There is Caitlin Rose, Tristen and Steelism in one world; Jeff The Brotherhood, Pujol and Fly Golden Eagle in another, and so on. Personally, I wish that there was a bit more crossover throughout. Currently, each of those worlds lives pretty separate and I think some people might think that it’s not cool to mix. But it’s sort of a shame because there is so much proof throughout the lineage of music that truly great music scenes usually involve entirely different sounding bands playing with and around one another. The idea that the Talking Heads split the stage with The Ramones and others is an incredible thing. It also can help evaporate that notion of one type of music being better than the other. They are all just different, but in a small town with a small group of people, sometimes that’s tough to convince people of. I wish there was a show that had an incredible singer/songwriter, followed by a garage-y band, followed by a rhythmic band…that would mean that Nashville was doing it right. If you come to town now, you go see a bill and there’s three bands doing the same thing. That’s not doing anyone any good.
Famous last words...
Kindness. The band and the trait. Both are fantastic.
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