The Wild are a three piece indie-electronic-hip-hop group residing in Auckland. UTR caught up with them to discuss how they formed, what they're working on and their eclectic genre fusion.
How and when did you guys form?
The Wild formed about two years ago here in Auckland. Moe and Brandon met through Moe's brother at uni and started working on some projects together when they realised they worked well together creatively. They were experimenting with different production styles when they decided they wanted a more organic sound. I had already met Moe through uni, and so they asked if I wanted to play guitar on some of their tracks, and it grew from there.
When you started did you know what kind of music you wanted to make or was it more organic than that?
We have really different taste in music, so when it came to writing together, we realized that it would be better if we could combine our tastes and find a middle ground. By using that to our advantage, we’ve been able to come up with some very different sounds. We really just have to trust our instincts - what we think sounds the best for the particular song we’re working on. We never set out to write songs in a specific way, they tend to just evolve as we work on them, until we feel that they’re finished. It creates a rather eclectic sound, but as long as we’re happy with the end result that doesn’t matter. Collectively, the songs work, while still being very different from each other. Definitely more of an organic process.
How would you describe your sound?
A mix of multiple genres. Someone described it as Indie Hip-hop fusion. That works as a way to label the genre, but our songs encapsulate a much wider range of sounds than just indie-rock and hip hop. There’s so many different musical styles interacting in each song, it’s usually just easier to tell people to listen to the tracks, as attempting to describe them doesn’t do the songs justice!
What musicians have influenced your sound? What other influences are you drawing on for the music you're writing at the moment?
We’ve each drawn from very different musical influences to one another.
Moe - Moe brings most of the strong hip-hop element with his rap vocals, although draws influence from both rappers and singers, such as Michael Jackson, Adele, Gil Scott Heron, Kanye West, Common and the XX.
Brandon - Coming from a background of pop and folk music, as well as some hip-hop and RnB, artists like Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons, Matthew Santos, Frank Ocean, the Weeknd. Singing style is mostly pop and folk, while musical production tends to be more hip-hop oriented.
Joe - Classic rock, blues and metal, with a bit of jazz and classical thrown in. Bands like Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Hendrix and the White Stripes. Anything played with a guitar!
We all like the big cinematic sounds of music like Lana del Rey and Woodkid, as well as some of Kanye’s more recent songs. The Black Keys, Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver are also receiving a lot of rotation from us at the moment, so we seem to have been drawing a lot of influence from these musicians in the past few months.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re finishing up our debut album and really enjoying playing shows. Performing the songs that we’ve been working so hard on is a great release. We’re also trying to get some more overseas hype building. We’ve been featured on some really dope blogs in the states including NY based ‘Pigeons and Planes. We’d love to continue to build a strong local base, as well as international buzz.
You guys are Auckland-based. How do you find the music community up here at the moment? Supportive and / or inclusive? Thriving? Are there other like-minded musicians kicking around at the moment?
The music community in Auckland is thriving at the moment. It just takes a little digging under the surface to see it. We’ve been feeling a lot of support recently, especially from other musicians. It seems right now everyone is looking to broaden their horizons and expand past traditional boundaries of set genre and fanbase, and it’s great! We played at the Powerstation (which is an awesome venue) two weeks ago, opening up for Six60. Our sound is quite different to theirs, but both they and the audience had really positive things to say, so it all seems pretty inclusive.
There are definitely like-minded musicians around; we are currently working on collaborating with Danny Kunau (aka Hullakitty), who is a fantastic songwriter. Check him out on Soundcloud!
Have you got any releases or upcoming releases that we should look out for?
Our debut album, Preface, will be coming out around the end of June/ beginning of July. It’ll be in store and available for download at our website (www.thewildishere.com) and on iTunes. Our first single from the album, Revolution, is already out and on the radio, and the video is on TV. Or you can check it out here.
What are you guys going to be doing for the rest of the year?
Playing a ton of gigs, releasing our debut album, writing more songs (we want at least another album’s worth by the end of the year) and hopefully touring as much as possible!
