In an era of pop music where many bands feel the need to drop their guitar to make pop music, Wild Love is doing anything but the sort, and intends to bring a little attitude back to pop music…
The band hails from all over the world from Ireland to Turkey to New York. They quickly made a name for themselves after moving to Nashville to play larger venues like Marathon Music Works, festivals like Live on the Green, and receiving support from Nashville’s largest independent radio station Lightning 100 across all their singles.
Since the move, through the singing and songwriting of frontman Brandon Gorman (Ireland), the production of guitarist Michael Crecca (New York) and groove of bassist Saygīn Geçener (Turkey), they’ve taken their lively, attitude driven rock sound and channeled it into hook heavy pop songs for a new era of Wild Love.
Tell us about the story of your act
The band started like any good band in a high school. We met randomly at a bus stop in Virgina and we just kicked on from there, started off playing in basements and then eventually took it to the stage and with that led to us making the move to Nashville. We needed to go somewhere where we would be no bodies and have to work even harder to make a name for ourselves. – Brandon
What is the message behind your art?
I think we are really just trying to write music that is honest. Creating songs that don’t have a filter and can be relatable to anyone. It doesn’t have one single message, but it’s real to us and probably real to others. – Brandon
What are some sources of inspiration for your lyrics and storytelling?
Real life, movies, long showers. Musicians are curators of life, as cliché as that sounds. We may not play music all the time, but we are constantly engaged and aware of what’s around us. Whether that’s a movie quote or a line from a conversation you overheard, you need to be hyperaware. Along with being a group of emotional guys (even if it’s not cool to admit it), we all tend to feel a little hard, so the tiniest things in life, really have a large effect on us that they may not on others. That’s why I think you find no real questions about what we are trying to say, it’s right there in the music. – Brandon
Who is an artist that you look up to more than others today?
Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz), he has had such a long career that has spanned so many difference genres and he is still relevant. He is someone who has never been afraid to be himself and has tried his hand at everything. From the many forms of Blur to Gorillaz, who are something else in themselves. He is definitely a big inspiration to me and should be a guide for any young artist. I may also have a big man-crush on him, but how could you not. -Brandon
All time favorite record?
Four by One Direction honestly, but I have been on a big Franz Ferdinand kick again, so maybe their self-titled. -Brandon
Tell us about your latest release and how it came about
“I Hate That I Need You” is my favorite song that I’ve written and is also the one that took the least amount of effort to write. The line was something I had been thinking about for a while and when I sat down to write it everything just flooded out in 5 minutes. It was honestly a very annoying process because you spend so many hours working on songs and then the one that took no time at all ends up probably being one of your best…but that’s life I guess haha. -Brandon
Yeah, and the initial demo and bones of the track came together in that same 5-minute spirit as well. Brandon came over one night and had what was a slow, melancholy version of the song you hear today, and I really liked it, but with what he was saying we felt it needed a nice balance of attitude and shine. We were really on the same page as to what we were after, so within an hour we had the bones of what you hear today.
The final version didn’t come together in 5 minutes though haha – Ryan Yount and I produced the song, and we spent a long time getting the right sounds, and balancing attitude-filled guitars and drums with those sheen synths and vocals. We really wanted to push ourselves to do something different with this one and I think we found some parts of ourselves as producers we had found before. It was a lot of fun, and Ryan’s the best to work with, he keeps me sane haha. – Mike
You seem to be fusing several musical genres. What inspires your sound?
Well, I think it helps that we are a multinational band, with all of us having grown up on different styles of music. For myself at least I grew up on bands like Kings of Leon, Franz Ferdinand, The Vaccines, Pigeon Detectives etc… thanks to my dad’s CD collection and stolen IPOD nano, sorry to my friend’s dad. But as I got older, I started to fall for pop music and just the simplicity of it. So all these blended together has led to this bundle of sounds. – Brandon
We all love pop music, for the energy, sounds, songwriting, etc., but we all also have this strong background in driving/punky rock music, whether that be the punk/hardcore music I grew up on, or the British bands we all love like The Vaccines or early Arctic Monkeys. And I’ve also spent the past year really getting into bands like Valley, or anything BJ Burton, John Congleton or Jack Antonoff touches, and that’s opened me up to adding sonically that pop layer of sheen/shine to what we do. I think sometimes the best music comes when there are dichotomist elements working in harmony, and we’re always trying to hone the craft of that. – Mike
What excites you the most about what you do?
Playing live for sure, it’s such a buzz and something that I have been waiting to do again for such a long time. It’s the reason I write songs, it gives us the vehicle to perform. Just having a room full of people all dancing to the same beat, its class. – Brandon
And hearing that people get something out of our music – like seeing that a lot of people are listening to your music is great, but a number is just a number on your phone at the end of the day, and all the numbers in the world can’t compare to talking to a real live person about how their music has impacted them. That keeps us going. – Mike
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Alive hopefully haha, I’m really bad about staying hydrated so that may catch me. But honestly hopefully we are on the road a whole lot more playing for our own fans, and obviously with that making a decent living off music. The most important thing is making sure we are still having fun and still sticking to our principles of being honest and being us. We all know that there are too many bands out there who sound like The 1975. -Brandon
Your style is very original and elaborate. How do you take care of your aesthetics?
For the amount of thought we put into it you’d think it would a lot more together. But really it’s just trying to find the right balance of what we think looks cool and what feels natural. -Brandon
Yeah, we’ve tried on a couple looks and styles over the years, but this new direction feels the most “us” than it ever has before. Brandon’s got a great eye and feel for what he wants, and we’ve done a great job as a group marrying his vision and direction with looks that we feel ourselves in. – Mike
What was the most daunting moment in your career so far?
Probably COVID and the fear of not playing shows. That was our bread and butter for so long and having that stripped away was very scary. But ended up giving us our best year yet and we have made the deepest connection with our fans base. – Brandon
Yeah, like so many other bands, we lost some amazing gigs we had lined up in 2020. But with our touring plans taken away, we got to take a breath and focus inwards and on where we wanted to go as a band, and that journey was so rewarding, and we couldn’t be happier with where we ended up and where we’re headed. – Mike
What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
“Don’t let your happenings destroy your happiness”. When you play music and are chasing after a career that is so volatile you can really get bogged down so easy. The highs are incredible, and lows are devastating, so you lose track of your happiness. So yeah, just trying to find happiness wherever you can and not letting things get to you, definitely easier said than done. – Brandon
“You don’t cut corners – you do it right the first time”. My Uncle Chris, who was a first responder in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, recently passed away from cancer he contracted during the attacks. Throughout this past week of his wake and funeral services, that quote of his kept coming up and it’s really stuck with me. To me, it means you do right by those you love, and yourself, every day and in everything you do. That’s the example he set, and it was such a takeaway for me and my family from his life. Trying to carry that into everything I do, music and otherwise, especially now. – Mike
Where do you think the next game changer will be in the music industry and entertainment scene?
I mean it’ll be something in the technology sector. From the piano roll to the streaming era, technology has always been the leader in change for the industry. So boring answer, but something there. – Brandon
I think the economics of the industry are shifting as more and more power shifts into the hands of the artists. They can’t do it by themselves fully, but there’s so many parts that are now in our hands. I think mainly record labels need to re-evaluate how they pivot their business model going forward. They’ve always been there, they always will be, and they’ve always operated like Venture Capital firms in some respects, but more now than ever they need to be looking at how that approach works and doesn’t work now, and in the future
