Wartime Recitals - Jonathan Krueger

Catch up with lead singer of Wartime Recitals, Jonathan Krueger, look for a music video from the band to come soon, and get the Wartime Recitals EP from iTunes now. 

How would you describe the EP's sound?

Jonathon Krueger: Definitely indie pop. We have a big baroque sound. The main sound is based around piano and there's bell tones and glockenspiel, acoustic guitar, electric guitar are all kind of complimenting the songs that are written on piano.

Where do you guys draw inspiration from while writing new songs?

We're all sorts of artists. There's five of us in the group from when we started writing this EP and we all came from different backgrounds. I know our piano player likes Ben Folds and he was a huge inspiration for one of his arrangements and even just doing the sounds for guitar we'll pull a lot of influence from post-rock bands that we like, like Explosions in the Sky. Some of my favorite narrative based song-writers that inspired these lyrics and songs are like Alex Smith.

How did you all meet?

Our piano player, Hugo, started the band several years ago and he just threw out this ad on Craigslist and I was looking at the time - I had never been in a band before but I was writing music - and I just was looking for a band to join and he put something in the ad like 'looking for any sort of musicians to join' and so I met him at rehearsal and there were a bunch of different people there at the time and it was really just kind of he and I and another musician that stuck around. We just started writing music together and about a year later we got the rest of our band together, like our drummer, Thomas, and bass player, Mike, and we started laying down the tracks for our first single, "Hold Your Velocity". So that came out a couple years ago and we just stuck around since then and started playing shows and trying to become known while playing shows this year.

Any bands or musicians who have influenced your sound, personally?

Personally, yeah, a big influence for myself is John Darnielle from Mountain Goats; I really love his music: it's just narrative based and the writing in there is really, really cool. I like Bill Callahan and then, if you just listen to the sounds, like we're going for things that sounds big, like Arcade Fire. Mix of all that together.

How would you describe your sound, as a whole?

Big baroque, indie pop, indie folk music with up and front center piano.

Do you guys have any sort of tradition or pre-show ritual you go through?

Yeah, well, recently we've been playing a residency at The Echo in LA and right before the show we've all been getting pizza right down the street at Two Boots and right before sound check we'll get together and share a few slices of pizza there. Aside from shows, we also like to do a sort of band retreat- kind of like corporate retreats - where we get away from LA for the weekend; jam in a house in the woods or mountains.

What's the best part about performing?

Definitely just getting a thrill once you play that first chord of whatever song we're playing and getting the jitters out and just getting that reaction from the audience is a blast. It's kind of been a new thing for us, playing live, so it's great to hear a good response to the music.

Did you do a lot of shows before releasing this EP?

This year we played - before releasing the EP - we probably played about five shows throughout the summer. Most notably, we played some local shows in Santa Monica and Echo Park region and there was Echo Park Rising Festival and then we did more shows after the EP release.

If you could pick any, which artist or band would you choose to work with?

I think we're all big fans of Local Natives and have all seen their rise here in LA. I'm a big fan of theirs so that's definitely one artist and Andrew Bird would be awesome to play with.

Any current releases you've got on heavy rotation?

I've been listening to Spoon's latest album a lot, that one's really good; I just caught them live a couple months ago at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This one artist, Valerie June, she has this album, Pushin' Against A Stone; I just saw her live at this festival and have just been listening to that CD nonstop. I'm a big fan of this artist Emperor X; he just released this EP called The Orlando Sentinel - that one's pretty cool.

What do you want listeners to take away from your music?

I'd say that, definitely, when you play it, you wanna feel happy. We kind of put out a lot of energy in our songs so it's thoughtful music for sure, we want people to kind of dig into the lyrics and kind of listen to the song's story and whatnot, but also, at the same time, you should be able to just blast it in the car wherever you're going and get excited about it.

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Denyse Tontz

See what Denyse Tontz had to say about her music and watch the fun video for new single "Mr. Hipster". 

How did you become interested in music

Denyse Tontz: I've actually always been interested in music and acting was more the thing that kind of happened. I've been playing piano since I was really young, probably four or five, and I started writing music when I was around eleven and didn't really, you know, do much with it; just had a notebook of songs and just let it sit. When I was fourteen or fifteen I decided I wanted to do something with it and I met my producer Suren and he's been working with me ever since.

Are there any artists whose music has inspired you?

I listen to a lot of genres and I think that's really changed my taste over the years. Even - not that I've been doing the music thing that long, per say, with my self-release - but even, like, every year, there's something a little different because of my new influences for that year. For "Use It" I was really into Katy Perry and I actually listen to a lot of indie rock, alternative music so I try to incorporate some minor melodies and stuff like that. For inspiration, I always like to listen to Lily Allen or Marina and the Diamonds or, you know, fun people like that who have really clever, witty lyrics.

What's the response been like for the "Mr. Hipster" video?

It's been really great actually. I don't think any of us really knew what to expect because it's like each video will get a very, very different response from very different people. This one, I've noticed, there's sort of a different audience than what I'm used to because I do Dog With A Blog on Disney and then before that I did Big Time Rush on Nickelodeon so my audience is usually, you know, kids and stuff like that, but I think, this time around, we're getting different results from the other times so it's really interesting to see that kind of evolve into a newer, older audience.

How do you balance your acting career with your singing one?

I don't know if there's any right way to balance any kind of career, but I try to do my best. I just don't get a free second, which is fine, because I'm kind of a workaholic anyway, but I do enjoy acting. I don't want people to think that I don't, you know, that I just do it as a day job; I definitely do enjoy it and would love to, you know, in the future, hopefully pursue them both and be able to juggle them and kind of join them together but, as of right now, just, whenever I'm not working, I'll just be in the studio with my producer or writing or, a lot of times, I'll bring my guitar into my dressing room - because we have a lot of down time on set - so it's just a great time to jot down some ideas and play with the melody.

Have you got any plans to release an EP or full length?

We're definitely planning on releasing an EP, hopefully early 2015. We've already released a couple songs, but they were only singles and they were all spaced out and they all had videos, but I think, this time around, we're trying to focus on releasing the songs themselves. I mean, we have so many, just in the arsenal, so I think it's time to just let them all out; release an EP.

Will the sound on the EP be similar to the sound on "Mr. Hipster"?

"Mr. Hipster" is probably one of the more bubbly ones. It's definitely, probably, the most 'novelty' of them, but I do have kind of that recurring theme of sort of novelty, like a little bit funny; I really like to, if I can, make people chuckle a little bit when they're listening to music. But, yeah, we have a variety of things going on; we have love, we have - I'm not going to give everything away - but it's a classic story of my life, put into the kind of words that I would use, which are usually a little bit different, being in the lyrics. So, I guess, musically we're keeping in that scene of "Mr. Hipster", but we definitely have some stuff that's a little darker and moodier, so something to look forward to.

Do you have any memorable fan interactions?

Ooh, that's fun. I've had some random ones. Most of the time, it's just like at the mall or, you know, just random places. I think the two most memorable ones was, one time I was at the beach and I didn't look like myself at all - most of the time these happen when I look really ugly I've noticed - so, I was at the beach and these girls recognized me from Big Time Rush actually and, instead of coming up to me, they kind of just kept walking past me and they ended up writing 'Jennifer' in the sand in front of me and then writing a little arrow and a question mark and it was just fun, but they were really sweet about it.

The other one was when I was driving once and I stopped at a red light and there was like a car full of young girls and they recognized me from Dog With A Blog and they started yelling out "Nikki" and so I waved and I had the flu or something so I was trying to not see anybody that day and so I thought it was done and then we ended up, after the light turns green, we ended up getting stopped at the next light again.

Any song you can't stop playing on repeat right now?

You know, I gotta say, I'm really into Taylor's new album. I was really curious as to what to expect but I started to hear a lot of it on Pandora and I realized that each song that was coming out was just a banger and, like, it was great. So, I'm really impressed with her new album; probably my current obsession.

Is there anything you want to say to your fans?

I hope they enjoy the ride. I'm still kind of making up things as I go so I hope that they stick around and, you know, bear with me and like what I have to say and sing and maybe don't get tired of me on social media when I'm posting photos of myself brushing my teeth or whatever [laughs] no, I'm just kidding. I really hope that they like it and there's definitely going to be something new around every corner so I will make it my goal to constantly surprise.

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The Well Reds

Catch up with The Well Reds to see what they had to say about the release of their debut album, Volume, and head to Loudfund now to help them raise the money to share the new album. 

What's the best response you've heard since releasing Volume?

Torin: I think the general response that we've gotten has just been that people really appreciate where we've come, how far we've come. There were elements that definitely worked in the music that we put out before and I think people get that, but some of the songs on the record are kind of a massive revolution of what we've done before and some of them are completely left of center and so it's really cool to see that those songs that were a massive revolution of what we've done before and songs that were really left of center to be songs that are hitting people the right way. That's kind of nice too that we can stretch and people still dig it. People are really enjoying the diversity of the record

Jeremy: I agree with that. It's hard for me to pinpoint one thing; we've gotten a lot of really good feedback, even just yesterday somebody was raving about the record. It's hard to talk about hat without feeling like you're blowing up your own ego, but this guy just said he loved every track; I was doing this session for an engineer yesterday and he had gone and bought the album and was just raving about it so that was kind of cool. It's always fun to have people love your work. That's been the best thing about this is just that people love it, we haven't gotten the whole 'well you guys are pretty close, this is a good record, it's a good effort,' you know, it's more of a 'wow, this is amazing' kind of reaction so that's been pretty amazing.

Is there a track from the album you're just really satisfied with?

Jeremy: I'm pretty satisfied with all of them, to be completely honest. I'm excited about just about every track. The ones that we collaborated on are my favorites and there's a lot of collaboration. Torin is one of the main writers in our band but he's very generous in the way that we all approach it; he's able to kind of take himself out of the process and let us come in and make some big changes to the songs and one of the ones that we kind of did a lot of work on was "Carousels" and then, you know, he made a lot of changes to "BPM" and the evolution of "Do You Still Love Me" was a lot of fun, too. That was kind of a different sounding song when we walked in the studio but we were able to do some really fun stuff with it with the 8-bit kind of approach and the lo-fi drums and everything, literally using a Casio keyboard for drum sounds and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun.

Rex: "Do You Still Love Me" is probably one of my favorites on the album; just the energy of the song. It's pretty unique and not like a lot of other stuff out there right now.

How would you describe the sound on the album?

Jeremy: Our sound, as a band, we've described it as melodic, you know, it's obviously lyric focused, hook focused, and a lot of very pop-y and catchy melodies. The album, as a whole, is really - we've kind of talked about it in these words: it's a playlist, really. We don't cross genres but we don't really land in any..

Torin: We touch on all these different places. It's a playlist for what you would hear on a modern pop station because there's nothing acoustic, this stuff is very electronic. There's this home base element, specifically harmonies between Jeremy's and Sean's voices, we have a lot of pretty aggressive rhythm section parts so there's usually little nuggets to try and tie everything together. On the song to song basis, specifically with the producer we were working with, we tried our best to really dial in the sound for that song. So, again, while there are elements that are very consistent throughout, there are specific sounds on specific songs that might only pop up once or twice.

Jeremy: Right, and it's interesting, going back to your first question, one of the things that's been talked about is that, even though there's a lot of diversity, the album is very much of the band. There's a consistency there and that's cool to hear: that when you touch up on a bunch of genres, you're still able to produce a whole work that sounds like the band.

Where do your ideas come from while writing?

Torin: So, Jeremy, Sean, and I write and I think that, in some ways, we probably all come from very different places. We've been really fortunate to get to travel a lot the past couple years to represent one of the top college booking agencies in the country so we've toured pretty extensively and I think, when you're on the road that much, you get to collect a lot of really cool life experiences. I think this record, in particular, kind of catalogs some of the really cool stuff that we got to experience on the road, and also some of the maybe not so good stuff that we got to experience, and I think, as a band, we try to be really, really honest with what we're experiencing because I think that allows the listener to take whatever they will from it, from a really pure place.

Jeremy: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that we do all kind of come from different places and we have this process of kind of bringing songs to the band, ideas to the band - sometimes they're completed songs or almost completed - and then the process from there is picking our favorite ideas. It takes a little while to kind of land in a place, at least on this last record, it took us a few minutes to get a track list that we were comfortable with, but I think that this kind of democratic process that we have may take a little longer, but it resulted in a really great record so, yeah, I think it's really good. I think it's interesting to have different perspectives in a band: different writers coming together with different ideas and they way they see things and then, once a song is brought to the table, we cut it up and we change things, and, unless the writer is pretty adamant that it stays the way it is, it's open to the scalpel.

Do you guys have any traditions or rituals you go through before performing?

Torin: With a lot of the college stuff, we have a pretty intensive set up with production, so by the time - hour and a half, two hours - of setting all that stuff up, usually we're just chilling out, taking a nap, trying to get some food.

Jeremy: I have some pretty interesting sounding vocal warm-ups I'm sure the guys are tired of hearing; there's some videos on Instagram. I think we just, kind of, do our own thing and then, when we take the stage, that's when we're kind of coming together.

Rex: Some reading. Trying to find food. Normal stuff.

Torin: Trying to find free food.

What's the best part about performing?

Torin: Getting out of the difficulties of the day. It's a very in the moment type process.

Jeremy: Yeah, I think, for me, it's crowd interaction. I love kind of the relationship between the performer and the crowd and just, I feel like, trying to get people to jump out of this place.. People generally are very self conscious in the audience and trying to bring them to a place where they're not self conscious, just get them moving and get them up and into the music; when a crowd is really responding to your efforts to bring them into your world, I think that's when amazing things can happen.

Rex: Similar to Jeremy's. I enjoy just, people being excited about what you're doing and it's energizing to be doing something that other people enjoy.

What type of tracks are you guys listening to right now?

Jeremy: I'm pretty stuck on St. Lucia; I'm loving their new record. I listen to a lot of James Blake, Tegan and Sara - I love their albums - and, yeah, I'm kind of in that world; in between the pop and more experimental.

Rex: Mostly, I've been listening to just the new Maroon 5 album.

What do you want people to take away from your music?

Torin: I think the general idea that we've always been open to is that we're trying to inspire people to think and we don't really want to tell them what to think about. The ideas that we have, we have collected a lot of these really cool experiences and we've pulled a lot of it and they mean a lot to us and we feel like there are pieces of that that will speak to people. So, it's a little like, this song's for this person and that song's for that person, but I think there's little pieces that will speak in a very personal way and that's exciting. 

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Jesse Macht

See what Jesse Macht had to say about the inspiration behind his latest album and head to iTunes to get Suitcase Heart now.

What got you interested in music?

Jesse Macht: I always played music as a kid, I know that's an old story, but I played piano as a really little kid and violin and sang all the time, but what got me into it really was being in a band. When I was in high school I was in a cover band and we added a guitar player because, at the time, I wasn't really good enough, and he came into the band and was like "you know, we can write our own songs". For some reason - I had been a huge classic rock fan, I loved Jimi Hendrix, I loved Zeppelin, James Taylor, and listened to all this music - but, for some reason, it never dawned on me that I could write my own songs so, when he said we could write our own songs, that sort of blew my mind and we wrote a song and after that I was hooked. He took me to go see a band called Kara's Flowers in LA and they were like a high school band, a few years in front of us, and watching them do their thing was pretty cool because I was just in awe that somebody that was like my neighbor could do it. Kara's Flowers turned out to be Maroon 5 so, for me, they were just great mentors, just seeing all those things together.

How would you describe the sound on this album?

Definitely a bit melancholy; now it's been about eight months since I actually tracked it, so it's interesting to hear, you know, to hear how your mind changes from writing it and tracking it and everything. I think there's this sort of ambient familiarity, like an ambient classic rock sort of vibe but they're love stories and it's love/loss. I went through a rough break-up so that's where the heart and the intention of a lot of the songs came from, but they're also dealing with bigger questions, like what sort of love forces you to question: it forces you to question who you are as a human being, and your business, and your life's intention, and why you exist, and what you want. Love was the impetus.

How does this album compare to your last one?

This one just took definitely more of a chance with what I had to say and what I had to ask myself. I loved making that last record, but it was my first record and it was sort of a flag in the sand. I was in a band for awhile, in a pop band, and that was my first adventure outside of it and, even though I loved the songs and it was an important record for me to make, this record was a little more focused and exactly what I was trying to communicate with the songs, which really was this idea of who we want to be and how are we willing to get there or what are we willing to sacrifice and, you know, what do you have to sacrifice to get there and it hurts and it feels good and it's all of these things, but how do we live up to the expectations of the life we want to live?

How has your sound evolved since leaving the band and starting your solo career?

It just got me confident, I would say. When you're first doing something on your own, I think there's a lot of blind faith, which you need to, you know, to jump off the cliff, and that band gave me that and the ability to get going. I think now, where I'm trying to evolve to is, the courage to be as honest as possible, to trust that if I really speak from the heart and really trust people and share what questions I have and fall into that, fully, then that's going to make my music a little more experimental, both lyrically and musically, and it'll be that much more genuine. I think when something is truly genuine people can't help but connect to it, they can't help but love it. Anybody, I think, who looks down on somebody who's truly and genuinely putting their heart on their sleeve, they themselves don't have heart. It's just really hard to do that, for any human being to get up and really share something and I think, now, having the courage to be on my own, having that first record under my belt, it's just life experience that gave me the opportunity on this record to just put myself out there and really go the extra mile.

What do you keep in mind while writing new songs?

People are a huge inspiration for me, other people, friends, family, strangers: I'm just interested in their stories. I think looking at other people and looking at their stories and the interactions I have with those people - I try to reflect on just some of the philosophy I have in life and, you know, where I'm going and why I'm going. There's a lot of 'why'; what are we on this speeding rock for and, you know, if we're going to spend our time doing something it better be something that inspires us every moment. So, I'm just inspired by other people's inspiration and I'm inspired by why people are up and positive and why people are down and melancholy and I'm just so interested in the drama of life and helping people and myself to sort of ask the questions of what makes us take that next step.

Are there any current artists or new releases you can't stop listening to or might take inspiration from?

Yeah, I mean right now I'm listening to some oldie stuff but the woman who I really, really wig out for is Laura Marling; she is so wonderfully in touch with this haunting affair she has with life and she's so complicated in her analyzing of her childhood and of her womanhood and the interactions she has. She's just so brutally honest with it that it forces her to be this really haunting character and that comes through in her guitar playing and the tunes she plays with and the lyrics she uses and that just inspires to no end because she fully is unapologetic about the trajectory of her life and how she's trying to move her way through. I think we're always on a journey to try and be that genuine truth and she's really in the thick of that now and so, yeah, she inspires me a lot. She was a huge influence on the record.

Have you got a favorite song from Suitcase Heart to perform live?

Yeah, I really love "Broken Faith", which is the first song on the record. It hits the nail on the head of what I was trying to sound like, for sure. I recorded that at the Zac Brown Band studio in Nashville, which was a super cool place - it was featured in Dave Grohl's Sonic Highways TV show that's on HBO right now. "Broken Faith" came really to me because it really was an honest conversation; it comes from this idea - which is a little bit of a bummer, I think I'm healing - but, when I was going through the break-up with this girl, part of the stuff that really broke us down at the end was when we would sort of argue and conversate about all we were going through. She got to this point when we were talking - and she was the one girl, the one person, in my life who I could be fully vulnerable with and share with her my weaknesses and my doubts and frustrations and anger, all the things you hold onto when you're in the middle of a public conversation, even with close friends sometimes you don't let go and, with her, she was the first person I really have given to - when we were falling apart, she had sort of said, in passing, like 'sometimes you were more vulnerable than I could take you being and I needed you to be strong for us because we're both artists and I don't know if I can live that life where you have that vulnerability' and that really just pulled the rug right out from under me. I thought, 'oh, shit, even in love I can't be fully vulnerable with somebody; I have to be protected and have to be this, you know, virile, male protector. That sucks'.

That's really where I broke my faith; I lost that idea that, in love, you can be fully vulnerable and now I think I'm trying to be fully vulnerable in my music because, that, at least, is under my own volition and music can't be taken away from me, I can play that no matter what. I think I need to heal that and learn that maybe in another relationship or any other person I can be that vulnerable, but that song really was, like, the impetus of the whole record and the sound and it was a really honest moment of that philosophy of what a bummer it is to lose that vulnerability.

What do you want listeners to take away from your album?

I think I want people to hear the stories and see if they can relate to them and know that there's somebody else out there who's going through it in that voice, with that perspective. Also, even though some of the things might sound down or melancholy, they'll find inspiration that we share the same struggle, everyone's going through the same thing, and that in all the songs, even in "Broken Faith", I do have a genuine optimism that lives inside me so when I write, I write out of loss or vulnerability but I can't help but always find the optimism. Sort of like, we'll get through this eventually but this sucks right now. I have a lyric in "One More Call", which is the fifth song on the record, and it says "if it's impossible to love me I won't make you live this lie but I will force you face to face with your reasons, and if you push me to the right you push me away, and you'll prove that you're not worthy of this hope I build inside" and that's kind of, like, those three lines are sort of how I feel about life like I don't want to force anybody into something, but I am going to be vulnerable, but if you're not willing to be that friend to me or to be that person then you're not worthy of the life I have inside of me, and I want other people to realize that.

If you can't fully be yourself around somebody, a parent, a family member, a friend, if you can't fully be that sad face or happy face or whatever is truly you, that person can't build you up for those things that are truly you, then they're not worthy of your life; they're not worthy of your inspiration and you have to be worthy. Hopefully I, as a song-writer, am worthy of those people listening to my record and vice-versa; hopefully they are willing and worthy of listening.

I'm going to be on tour in January and in Spring so hopefully people can come out and see that and I've got a song called "This Light" that is coming out in the next few weeks for the holiday season, which is essentially a song about the holidays and how wonderful it is to be around the people you love during this time. All those sort of holiday ideas, but there's no mention of Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanza or anything like that; this song is all about light and how this time of year is so much about light and how it forces you to reflect. That song is coming out in the next few weeks, and the video too; I'm excited because it's got a lot of family footage and all that. 

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