Joel King - The Wild Feathers (10/06/2014)
Rock n Roll has a long and rich history, yet like so many genres it has broken into a million sub-genres to keep the music fresh. But before this splinter, rock n roll was just six strings, booming harmonies and the induce call of an open unwinding road. Now meet The Wild Feathers, a band dedicated not only to preserving the original statement left by rock n roll, but to also allow it to evolve to ranges that will keep the genre afresh. Headed by Ricky Young, Joel King, Taylor Burns, Preston Wimberly and Ben Dumas, The Wild Feathers stepped out of the norm and instead decided to meld the vocals of all five members together. A different setting by most acts who normally carry one lead vocalist, the uniqueness of featuring and meshing all their voices together is perhaps The Wild Feathers’ strongest facet as vocalist and bass player, Joel King explained to me.
“Well we all had our own groups before that and there are a lot of bands that we liked. So it was just this kind of idea that we had and after we threw a few of the stuff together and started writing a couple of songs, we didn’t know if it would work. But we hung around and found some guitars and we started playing together and we created magic there. It was just better than what we were doing with our other groups, so we just kind of went for it.”
To their advantage, Ricky, Joel, Taylor and Preston all wrote songs prior to forming The Wild Feathers, thus enabling a simplistic and nurtured method of combining their talents together. However for most acts, the methodology of songwriting is often a grueling task strained with indecisiveness. Causing members of the band to bestow the task to one single member, namely the lead vocalist. However for The Wild Feathers, songwriting has become somewhat of a joint effort.
“Well it’s hard and easy. We have a lot of songs because we all write songs, so there is a lot of material. But a lot of the time, we just go with what sounds the best and it can be difficult. But it’s a lot like you got weight off your shoulders, each person doesn’t have to do it, because when you have your own band you really got to write a certain way, really know how the songs sound and then you try and perform it. But now, you have a song and it takes a totally different direction and there are a lot of cool surprises too, there are a lot of benefits to it. We’re also doing so many shows on the road and so many dates, when your just one singer you can wear out your voice. Whereas now we share the workload and the responsibility is great.”
During any inception of a new band, there is always a period of adjustment and most notably deciding who will appear as the lead man of the act. With four vocalists, Joel elaborated to me how The Wild Feathers share the limelight amongst each other.
“It’s hard but also it’s very easy because we’re so busy. I would hate it to just me up there, but it’s really nice because its just not focused solely on one person’s shoulders. It’s cool; everyone knows that the whole premise of the band is multiple front men and classic rock. We’re not getting headlines by killing bats on stage, so it’s pretty easy for us to sink into the roles and kind of just play our jams."
While The Wild Feathers share many influences that resulted in their infusion of country to blues, the underlining factor of the band is just plain old rock n roll. The beauty of this is the ability to mesh all other respective genres into rock and still have a viable sound that is consistent throughout a record, as The Wild Feathers have done.
“The beauty is the rock because we’re just rock n roll in general. You can just do so many things and that’s where the blues, country, folk and everything else mixes up and that makes rock n roll. So that’s the key element and we don’t like to compare ourselves to the best, so we try to look up to them. Like how The Stones do what they do and came out with ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and that’s a country song, but then they played blues songs before that and then tempo-bass songs, but it’s all still a Rock N Roll band. So we felt that when you’re a Rock n Roll band you can get away with anything and if we want, we can slow ourselves down to play country or whatever. Really we don’t think about it too much, like how we really need to sound. But we do have a certain vibe for the type of music we like and the fusion of our guitars, bass, drums, keys and real people singing it and real people playing it and that’s what we did.”
Releasing self-titled debut album in late 2013, the band enlisted the help of producer Jay Joyce (Cage The Elephant, The Wallflowers, Emmylou Harris) who tapped into the bands’ instinctive harmony to create a flowing album. The following record resulted in an unruly flow of bluesy, hard-toned tracks such ‘Backwoods Company,’ ‘Left My Woman,’ and ‘Tall Boots.’ However, this process of production wasn’t without sleepless nights and tireless efforts.
“Well first and foremost we had to pick the songs, which we all had. Every person has ten or twenty they’ve written and then we all got together and wrote a whole bunch of songs, just a whole mess of demos. But putting the record together - song wise was tricky. We had a lot more slow songs than we had fast songs, so we didn’t want to pick out the best fast song we had, nor the best chirpy one, we didn’t want it to be one sound. We tried to make a well-rounded record, so being too slow wouldn’t bore you and hearing the same voice wouldn’t bore you as well. We didn’t want the same tone and vibe content on every song; we tried to make it well rounded. But still being true to whom we’re, so we would pick songs out of our bunch to make the best record. Then we went into the studio and we had Jay Joyce, who produced it and was great. He wanted us to do it live, cut it to tape and do all this great stuff. Usually when people go in, they do all the drums and bass for two to four days and then they come in and do a guitar week and we kind of think that’s horrible. We’ve recorded records like that before and we hated it. So he wanted us to do a song a-day, one in the morning and one at night until we played it a million times and we have a good take. We would do overdubs altogether where we would think, ‘Ok I need to put another acoustic guitar in this.’ So you’ll play tambourine and someone can play the organ and others can sing the harmony, just an overdose of all these things together, adding layer and vibe onto the songs. It was great because we did one song a day so at the end of the day we could listen to it and see our progress and nobody is sitting around on their laptop in the studio and you really get involved. But you get pretty worn out too, but your voice doesn’t get all at tired because you’re singing every song for two days. But you’ll also be proud of it when you finish a song and the next day you start all over opposed to having half the record done but no vocals on the record. So we really liked the fact that it was live, you get a vibe and that we felt a little accomplish everyday because we were working really hard and you could hear it at the end of the day.”
Joel went on an discuss about the band’s experience with working with Jay Joyce.
“That’s why working with Jay was so great, we needed that. I mean we didn’t have much success with our old groups and since we’re all equal members of the group, we really needed a guy to sort out the bullshit. I mean we’re not The Beach Boys, we’re not a barbershop quartet or anything, but we have a uniqueness that you can’t put your finger on. Sometimes Jay would be trying to work on a song or trying to get the harmonies right, he would put out the off areas and tell us to sing together or just sing in octave. Most bands don’t always sing in perfect motion where it’s like curdle one, three, five harmonies. Sometimes there’s a guy screaming in the background, like how high can you go or sometimes its just singing in unison. So he gave us a little bit of that Rock n Roll freedom, so he allowed us to do things like that and told us it was ok and when we were trying too hard and just stuff like that.”
With Ricky, Taylor and Preston hailing from Texas, Joel from Oklahoma and Ben coming from Georgia, all five members shared a childhood immersed in a rich and blushful setting that effectively influence how their music is produced today. As all three states share a wealthy history of country, folk and Rock n Roll, The Wild Feathers were able to take those settings and place them into their songs as Joel explained.
“Well our drummer is from Georgia and I’m from Oklahoma and the other three guys are from Texas, but one was from Houston and the other from Dallas. Where I’m from, Oklahoma is only a few hours away and right across the border and Georgia is the south and everything. There is definitely a vibe going on, the country and the blues, that element there is just really present in all of our stuff. Like the country and the folk are heard in our story telling and lyrics and the vibe of the blues is felt in our melodies and the heart, soul and rhythm. I think that definitely stem from where we come from. But ultimately where we’ve grown up, classical rock rules, like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and that still rules where we’re from.”
In order to describe the band, Joel one day said that they’re the ‘four-headed monster’, perhaps an accurate and imaginative description to describe The Wild Feathers partnership and current niche.
“We thought that since we all play together and play in other bands we’re four times greater than other bands. We’re four headed just incase you don’t like one of us; you might like one of the other guys. So we are kind of a super group, we can do our own things but choose to do this because it’s special and we really got a good thing going on that we couldn’t create on our own, we could only do it together, hence the nickname the four headed monster.”
The Wild Feathers will play Splendour in the Grass 2014, and two sideshows.
The Wild Feathers
Fri 25 July – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Sat 26 July – Newtown Social Club, Sydney
Jason Cheung
“Well we all had our own groups before that and there are a lot of bands that we liked. So it was just this kind of idea that we had and after we threw a few of the stuff together and started writing a couple of songs, we didn’t know if it would work. But we hung around and found some guitars and we started playing together and we created magic there. It was just better than what we were doing with our other groups, so we just kind of went for it.”
To their advantage, Ricky, Joel, Taylor and Preston all wrote songs prior to forming The Wild Feathers, thus enabling a simplistic and nurtured method of combining their talents together. However for most acts, the methodology of songwriting is often a grueling task strained with indecisiveness. Causing members of the band to bestow the task to one single member, namely the lead vocalist. However for The Wild Feathers, songwriting has become somewhat of a joint effort.
“Well it’s hard and easy. We have a lot of songs because we all write songs, so there is a lot of material. But a lot of the time, we just go with what sounds the best and it can be difficult. But it’s a lot like you got weight off your shoulders, each person doesn’t have to do it, because when you have your own band you really got to write a certain way, really know how the songs sound and then you try and perform it. But now, you have a song and it takes a totally different direction and there are a lot of cool surprises too, there are a lot of benefits to it. We’re also doing so many shows on the road and so many dates, when your just one singer you can wear out your voice. Whereas now we share the workload and the responsibility is great.”
During any inception of a new band, there is always a period of adjustment and most notably deciding who will appear as the lead man of the act. With four vocalists, Joel elaborated to me how The Wild Feathers share the limelight amongst each other.
“It’s hard but also it’s very easy because we’re so busy. I would hate it to just me up there, but it’s really nice because its just not focused solely on one person’s shoulders. It’s cool; everyone knows that the whole premise of the band is multiple front men and classic rock. We’re not getting headlines by killing bats on stage, so it’s pretty easy for us to sink into the roles and kind of just play our jams."
While The Wild Feathers share many influences that resulted in their infusion of country to blues, the underlining factor of the band is just plain old rock n roll. The beauty of this is the ability to mesh all other respective genres into rock and still have a viable sound that is consistent throughout a record, as The Wild Feathers have done.
“The beauty is the rock because we’re just rock n roll in general. You can just do so many things and that’s where the blues, country, folk and everything else mixes up and that makes rock n roll. So that’s the key element and we don’t like to compare ourselves to the best, so we try to look up to them. Like how The Stones do what they do and came out with ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and that’s a country song, but then they played blues songs before that and then tempo-bass songs, but it’s all still a Rock N Roll band. So we felt that when you’re a Rock n Roll band you can get away with anything and if we want, we can slow ourselves down to play country or whatever. Really we don’t think about it too much, like how we really need to sound. But we do have a certain vibe for the type of music we like and the fusion of our guitars, bass, drums, keys and real people singing it and real people playing it and that’s what we did.”
Releasing self-titled debut album in late 2013, the band enlisted the help of producer Jay Joyce (Cage The Elephant, The Wallflowers, Emmylou Harris) who tapped into the bands’ instinctive harmony to create a flowing album. The following record resulted in an unruly flow of bluesy, hard-toned tracks such ‘Backwoods Company,’ ‘Left My Woman,’ and ‘Tall Boots.’ However, this process of production wasn’t without sleepless nights and tireless efforts.
“Well first and foremost we had to pick the songs, which we all had. Every person has ten or twenty they’ve written and then we all got together and wrote a whole bunch of songs, just a whole mess of demos. But putting the record together - song wise was tricky. We had a lot more slow songs than we had fast songs, so we didn’t want to pick out the best fast song we had, nor the best chirpy one, we didn’t want it to be one sound. We tried to make a well-rounded record, so being too slow wouldn’t bore you and hearing the same voice wouldn’t bore you as well. We didn’t want the same tone and vibe content on every song; we tried to make it well rounded. But still being true to whom we’re, so we would pick songs out of our bunch to make the best record. Then we went into the studio and we had Jay Joyce, who produced it and was great. He wanted us to do it live, cut it to tape and do all this great stuff. Usually when people go in, they do all the drums and bass for two to four days and then they come in and do a guitar week and we kind of think that’s horrible. We’ve recorded records like that before and we hated it. So he wanted us to do a song a-day, one in the morning and one at night until we played it a million times and we have a good take. We would do overdubs altogether where we would think, ‘Ok I need to put another acoustic guitar in this.’ So you’ll play tambourine and someone can play the organ and others can sing the harmony, just an overdose of all these things together, adding layer and vibe onto the songs. It was great because we did one song a day so at the end of the day we could listen to it and see our progress and nobody is sitting around on their laptop in the studio and you really get involved. But you get pretty worn out too, but your voice doesn’t get all at tired because you’re singing every song for two days. But you’ll also be proud of it when you finish a song and the next day you start all over opposed to having half the record done but no vocals on the record. So we really liked the fact that it was live, you get a vibe and that we felt a little accomplish everyday because we were working really hard and you could hear it at the end of the day.”
Joel went on an discuss about the band’s experience with working with Jay Joyce.
“That’s why working with Jay was so great, we needed that. I mean we didn’t have much success with our old groups and since we’re all equal members of the group, we really needed a guy to sort out the bullshit. I mean we’re not The Beach Boys, we’re not a barbershop quartet or anything, but we have a uniqueness that you can’t put your finger on. Sometimes Jay would be trying to work on a song or trying to get the harmonies right, he would put out the off areas and tell us to sing together or just sing in octave. Most bands don’t always sing in perfect motion where it’s like curdle one, three, five harmonies. Sometimes there’s a guy screaming in the background, like how high can you go or sometimes its just singing in unison. So he gave us a little bit of that Rock n Roll freedom, so he allowed us to do things like that and told us it was ok and when we were trying too hard and just stuff like that.”
With Ricky, Taylor and Preston hailing from Texas, Joel from Oklahoma and Ben coming from Georgia, all five members shared a childhood immersed in a rich and blushful setting that effectively influence how their music is produced today. As all three states share a wealthy history of country, folk and Rock n Roll, The Wild Feathers were able to take those settings and place them into their songs as Joel explained.
“Well our drummer is from Georgia and I’m from Oklahoma and the other three guys are from Texas, but one was from Houston and the other from Dallas. Where I’m from, Oklahoma is only a few hours away and right across the border and Georgia is the south and everything. There is definitely a vibe going on, the country and the blues, that element there is just really present in all of our stuff. Like the country and the folk are heard in our story telling and lyrics and the vibe of the blues is felt in our melodies and the heart, soul and rhythm. I think that definitely stem from where we come from. But ultimately where we’ve grown up, classical rock rules, like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and that still rules where we’re from.”
In order to describe the band, Joel one day said that they’re the ‘four-headed monster’, perhaps an accurate and imaginative description to describe The Wild Feathers partnership and current niche.
“We thought that since we all play together and play in other bands we’re four times greater than other bands. We’re four headed just incase you don’t like one of us; you might like one of the other guys. So we are kind of a super group, we can do our own things but choose to do this because it’s special and we really got a good thing going on that we couldn’t create on our own, we could only do it together, hence the nickname the four headed monster.”
The Wild Feathers will play Splendour in the Grass 2014, and two sideshows.
The Wild Feathers
Fri 25 July – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Sat 26 July – Newtown Social Club, Sydney
Jason Cheung