All things considered, the Young Wild should not exist.
Which is to say, film majors and chemistry majors rarely jam together.
Odds are slimmer they’ll commit their entire careers to the noises produced.
And if a drummer catches said film major stealing his cymbals after jazz ensemble, he’d sooner tell him off than join his band—right?

Wrong—these are the kinds of events that brought The Young Wild together.

What if singer/guitarist Bryan Williams pursued a career in film? What if bassist Gareth Moore committed full-time to a lab coat and test tubes? Perhaps drummer Brandon Zedaker lost himself in the bottomless expanse that is jazz and never climbed out?

This is to say, listening to The Young Wild is catching a reaction mid-combustion.

Tangential threads from San Diego, Temecula and Hawaii sewn into circumstance and the pursuit of a similar sound: modern alt-rock played on vintage tubes and synths excavated from the depths of eBay. The music is reminiscent, yet never derivative, of influences like Tame Impala, Father John Misty, The Killers, Delta Spirit and Cold War Kids to name a few. A combination of classic rock chops earned from years in cover bands, and the cool chime of alt-rock (a la Devo and Alphaville) cut with William’s allegiance to soul, Motown and precision groove. New wave with an old soul. All of the angst ridden youth, all of the hindsight.

Yet, for all their chemistry, The Young Wild is not a precious product of instagram and a sell-your-soul pursuit of labeldom. The fact is, the songs came faster than they knew what to do with them—the attention followed.

After releasing the single “Not A One” online, the band received looks and listens from blogs and label heads, including Fairfax Recordings’ Kevin Augunas, who reached out to share his excitement about the track. As it happened, The Young Wild was on a tour that brought them to Los Angeles the very next day. They played a show that Fairfax reps attended, and spent the following day touring the studio, shaking hands and making an impression that led to an offer to sign just a few days later.

“There’s a landscape that these songs stand on,” says William about the material for the band’s upcoming album. “Like, downtown Los Angeles on a Thursday at two AM is a very specific landscape. People are making mistakes, people are self-medicating, people are rehashing old drama. Do you face the feeling or run from it?”