Young the Giant has made a name for itself with a beachy, alternative sound. They performed at UCLA last year and are currently on a tour that includes a stop at the Wiltern Theatre tonight. Lead guitarist Jacob Tilley spoke with Daily Bruin’s Andrew Bain about the band’s evolution from The Jakes to Young the Giant, the band’s musical stylings and its plans for its next album.
Daily Bruin: Can you talk about the band’s evolution from The Jakes to Young the Giant, aside from slight lineup changes?
Jacob Tilley: I couldn’t really tell you why we chose Young the Giant, because I’m still curious of that myself. But The Jakes had been a band since high school, and we’d done very well for ourselves for such young guys I guess, … (and I) will always remember those shows and times as just great and very honest. But … Sameer (Gadhia) and I never had huge ideas of becoming a huge rock band. … We were very set on going to college, … so when we went to college, there was a little bit of scuttling (over) what the band was going to be doing, and some of the members wanted to … kick Sameer and I out, and we wanted just to keep it light and just enjoy playing music together when we had the chance to. … And so we at that point kind of just like put the band on hiatus, and we played a couple shows where we’d come down from home and play, but we … weren’t taking it too seriously. So that summer … we had enough songs together with our new bandmates that we decided it’d be cool to record them and put out a CD (“Shake My Hand,” released under The Jakes) and that CD picked up a lot of label attention straightaway, and so from that we pretty much got signed, and we all decided to take time off school and pursue music as a career. And here we are three years later still doing it, and … getting pretty established now, … and we still enjoy it and realize that it could just be a passing thing and … we should just take advantage of the opportunity we have right now and travel the world and play music.
DB: Each of the songs on your self-titled album sound quite different. What’s your writing process?
JT: That’s one thing we’ve always wanted to … keep doing is (have) a pretty broad sound and (be) able to write whatever we really want and get away with it. We just all play together and show up to practice and have guitar riffs ready to go. … Eric (Cannata) and I will just play off each other and Sameer will play something on the (keyboard), Payam (Doostzadeh) will come up with a baseline and you just see how it goes, really.
DB: How far along are you in your new record? Are you working on it while on tour or keeping the two separate?
JT: Yeah, (we are) working on it at the same time, we’re just writing – just seeing what comes. And (we) are in our own place with a bunch of ideas coming together, and they … sound cool. I like them. We’ll be playing a couple of them on the next tour I think. … Hopefully we’ll have a record together by the summer to record.
DB: How have you adapted to such a busy lifestyle after growing up in Irvine, a quiet suburban town?
JT: It’s just taken a lot of maturity from all of us to be able to handle the work schedule that is given to us. We’ve had to grow up a lot and realize what it actually takes to make it in this world, and I think it’s a good thing. … There’s a pretty good work ethic that comes from the school there, and I think that’s really helped (us) be able to take on this hefty workload. … A lot of people don’t think that there’s a lot that goes into it, but we work very hard, and we don’t get paid that much to tell you the truth, and I think … we (obviously have) the goal of getting to the point where we can have a very comfortable life in this, but we realize that there’s a lot of work that has to go into it before that happens, and we just are gonna try to continue to do that.
DB: “Cough Syrup” and “Garands” were also on “Shake My Hand,” the EP released under The Jakes. What made you decide to carry those songs over to the new album?
JT: Well, they were strong songs and that’s where Roadrunner (Records) came in. … They wanted those songs on the record, and I thought they should be on the record too. … We knew they were good songs and that they would probably do well, and “Cough Syrup” has done very well for us, and … I can’t do anything but be grateful (for it).
DB: What is your favorite song to play live?
JT: I like playing all of them, but I really like playing “Islands.”