Photo credit: Dan Monick
Cold War Kids singer/guitarist Nathan Willett feels his group has occupied a rather rare and enviable niche in the music world so far during its career. Though the group is widely considered an indie band, they’ve also been able to get a few tastes of mainstream pop success without losing the credibility they established early on.
Having been able to exist in both the indie and mainstream pop worlds is a situation Willett doesn’t take for granted.
“We’ve had that kind of unique and great problem that, while we have never had an enormous breakout, we have also had an amazing ability to just maintain a certain level of popularity and stick around,” Willett said. “In many ways, that’s such an amazing feat in itself.
It’s especially impressive, he said, considering all the examples of young bands that have found success early in their career and been unable to follow it up. “We were very fortunate to grow on our own time, and that means musically, writing and recording-wise, and as performers,” he said. “I think the ideology of the band has gotten to grow at its own pace, which I think is incredibly rare for anybody who has that kind of one-foot-in-mainstream success—success at radio and stuff like that—and then another foot in the kind of more cult audience, or fans that just love us for being us. That’s kind of the dream. That’s the best thing you can have, really.”
But as Cold War Kids tour behind their latest studio album, L.A. Divine, Willett sounds ready to see the scales of success tip more toward the mainstream pop world. And there are reasons to believe a breakthrough in mainstream pop might be more within reach than ever for Cold War Kids, which formed in 2004 in Fullerton, Calif. and are now six full-length studio albums and 10 EPs deep into their career. For one thing, Willett noted, a number of indie acts (including Alabama Shakes, The Black Keys and Arctic Monkeys) have scored mainstream breakthroughs in recent years without losing the qualities that made them unique in the first place.
And Cold War Kids’ previous album, Hold My Home, also gave the group their first No. 1 hit when the gold-certified single “First” topped Billboard’s Alternative Rock singles chart.
With L.A. Divine, Willett feels the group has found ways to modernize its sound to fit pop radio without forsaking the distinctive elements that have long been a part of the band’s musical identity. For the album, original band members Willett and bassist Matt Maust and more recent recruits Joe Plummer (drums), Matthew Schwartz (keyboards/guitar) and David Quon (guitar), put a more modern pop sheen on their songs, while still weaving unusual piano, guitar and drums into the sound.
Uptempo tunes like “So Tied Up,” “Open Up to The Heavens” and “Invincible” have the kind of sing-along vocal hooks, danceable beats and pop melodies that fit current top-40 trends, but also retain the nervy edginess that has often characterized Cold War Kids’ music. There are also a few ballads, such as “Restless” and “Can We Hang On?,” which could cross into mainstream pop.
But there’s still an indie feel and attitude to several songs. “No Reason to Run” mixes a bit of gospel into its piano pop sound. “Love is Mystical” (which reached No. 2 “Billboard’s” Alternative Rock singles chart) and “Wilshire Protest,” with their pounding piano, jagged melodies and Willett’s caffeinated vocals, echo favorites that first surfaced on the group’s 2006 debut album, Robbers & Cowards, and its 2008 follow-up Loyalty to Loyalty.
“I think this record was just, in many ways, building upon all that we’ve learned over the course of all these years,” Willett said. “I feel like it is a totally the best Cold War Kids record. It is the embodiment of all the stuff we’ve learned over all these years and the stuff we love.”
This winter, the group has a run of appearances on radio-sponsored multi-act holiday shows (including this weekend’s FM 102.1 Big Snow Show at the Rave) which will mean playing a shorter set than on headlining dates. But Willett says he’s been enjoying reaching a point where the Cold War Kids can mix and match songs in shows of any length.
“Having this much music and this many records and EPs and all that, it’s so fun to be able to choose from so much,” he said. “I always kind of had in the back of my mind that I hoped there would come a time when we could just have this music to pick from. Every band knows the feeling of having one album out and playing it, trying to stretch a 40-minute album into an hour-long set. It’s so stressful and you have to play everything ... Obviously, we want fans to hear what they came to hear, but also that it’s going to be a little different every time. That’s the most fun to me.”
Cold War Kids co-headline FM 102.1’s Big Snow Show on Saturday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. with Phoenix, Lord Huron and Welshly Arms.
