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| What
is Young Love? Just peek at the New York band's myspace page. You'll find this
brief but amusing overview:
"Los angeles good times tequila rock bands
austin day cruiser van smoke machines tour trafalgar hollywood oakwoods why are
dudes wearing makeup everyone knows everyone brooklyn night clubs whiskey white
suits bright lights miami island cutting rugs london finishing the
record"
"That's the last two or three years of my life, with a bit of
childhood thrown in," says Dan Keyes, frontman and musical tour de force behind
Young Love. Not only does that word collage work as a history of the group, but
it also serves as a good primer on the band's sound, which can only be described
as "now, but different."
Strange but true: You may have heard these
songs before. A couple of the tracks, only available on the Internet, have
filtered out into NYC's clubs over the past few months. Stranger: if you really
know Keyes, you may be surprised it's him behind these songs.
It was only
two years ago when the multi-talented musician was a member of Recover, a
buzzworthy young band from Austin, Texas. Their melodic post-punk sound landed
the group a major label deal, a dedicated nationwide fan base and much critical
acclaim. But Keyes had other things (or, actually, other songs) on his
mind.
"I love those guys, and I'm still close with them, but I was at a
creative crossroads," remembers Keyes. "I knew I had to change something about
my life."
Fate intervened. During a birthday party, a New York friend of
Keyes made the musician an offer he couldn't refuse. "He said, 'I have a room
free up here. Be here in a week and a half.' And I had always wanted to move to
New York, even as a kid."
So Keyes left a town full of great musicians
and good friends to move to a strange and wonderful new place … to bus tables.
"I moved up here with one bag and my guitar," he says. "And I mean that
literally." Fortunately, his bag contained a few demos and rough sketches for
songs, which would eventually serve him well.
While doing time at a
high-end midtown restaurant ("Catering to rich white people that spoke to me
like I didn't know English"), Keyes started thinking more about those unfinished
songs. They were good songs, but they hadn't fit in with any of his previous
bands. They were danceable, unpredictable, catchy and even thematic. They were,
in essence, the origins of what would become Young Love.
"That band name
actually hit me years ago," he says. "I knew if I had another band, it would be
called Young Love. It's not two words just randomly thrown together. The name is
an idea, and all of my songs reflect that."
Guitars, while present on
Young Love's debut, are merely a side note in the band's sound. "And that's the
funny thing," says Keyes. "I wrote these all on an acoustic guitar; some of them
even sound like country.
But once Keyes hit the studio, things changed
as he and his bandmates started tinkering with the songs. Discotech, the
infectious first single that's already requested in NYC night clubs, is now
sonically more in tune with its name, featuring a dance beat - squealing guitar
combo that fits comfortably into the New York underground … while never
emulating it. And the propulsive Find a New Way is Keyes, as he puts it,
"trippin' out on a Microkorg keyboard."
"That was written a couple of
years ago," admits Keyes. "I had just turned 21, and I was going out to bars and
clubs, and realizing how much fun it is. Actually, a lot of these songs are just
about nightlife, and the other half are about love. It all sounds really
positive, even if you really listen to the lyrics and see that it's not always
the case."
Meanwhile, Tragedy shows off a darker side, with the guitars
a little noisier and the mood stark. "That song is too crazy to even describe,"
says Keyes
Keyes, who is currently assembling a band to tour with this
summer, ultimately sees Young Love as a culmination of hard work, taking chances
and allowing himself the chance to write the music that's been knocking around
his head for years.
"This record has been a long time coming," says
Keyes, "These songs have existed with me for so long. I'm excited to get them
out there. And I hope people get excited by them: I feel like I'm just the
instrument to give the songs to everyone." |
Amanda Berman
