CELEBRATING THE RELEASE OF THEIR DEBUT EP, WAKE ALL MY YOUTH
Story by Laura Cappe
Photo by David A. Pike
For most musicians, creating music is about connecting with an audience while doing what they love. This holds true for Toronto’s Young Empires. These four guys – Matthew Vlahovich , Jacob Palahnuk, Robert Aaron Ellingson, and Taylor Hill – have an expanded idea of what it is they should be giving their audience: art that sticks. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, Young Empires have navigated their way through the music industry and their home scene.
Plaid sat with bass player Jacob Palahnuk and guitarist Aaron Ellingson outside of a local coffee chain to chat about art, success, the future, and their debut EP, Wake All My Youth, out today in Canada.
In just two years Young Empires have played with bands like Jamiroquai, Chromeo, Japandroids, Girl Talk and Sleigh Bells, gained street cred in the music and fashionworlds alike and have some pretty wicked stories to tell. What is most impressive about all of this is that they haven’t even put out a full-length record yet.
“We’ve done a lot,” Ellingson admits. “We’ve done two or three European tours in the two years that we’ve been a band, which is pretty fantastic. We’ve done some amazing things, worked really hard and had a great time. This [whole ride] has been pretty incredible. The fashion community has embraced us…We’ve played runway shows. The rock scene has embraced us. We’re really lucky that we get to do what we love and have it be accepted by so many people, in Toronto and around the world.”
Young Empires are certainly a rare case for the music industry today. They are independently shaping the business of their art. Where thousands of artists are struggling to get heard, these guys are already having their songs played on both rock and top 40 radio.
“You just feel lucky that so many things are falling into place,” Ellingson tells us. “I heard us being played on top 40 radio the other day – on Virgin – in between Rihanna and Puff Daddy. I never thought that I would be in a band that would have a song played on top 40 radio. That just takes the number of people that are going to hear about Young Empires and multiply it by thousands every time it plays – that’s a good thing.”
So how have these guys found such success? Perhaps it is fair to say that Young Empires have it all figured out. They have a defined electro-pop sound with tinges of “tropical beats” that – as Palahnuk describes it - “will make you want to turn the sidewalk into a runway”. They’re also hands-on, working together and recognizing the importance of creating a brand for themselves, without the aid of a record label.
“It’s not just about music anymore,” Palahnuk explains. “[Being in a band] has become a whole art form, a whole community.”
“The artistic component of being a band is just as important as the music these days…for a band like us anyways,” Ellingson adds. “It’s not just about the song anymore – you need something to go along with it… Images can stay with people a lot more than a song – songs can get lost in the flood, but an image can stick with you for a long time. Some people could take that negatively – like the branding thing is ‘dirty’, but for us it’s just another way for us to express ourselves and present the band in a way that we see it. There are a lot of great bands out there, but it’s about being able to combine those elements [music and visuals] that attracts an audience. And it’s more fulfilling for us in that way too. We’re lucky to have the tools and the skill set to do a lot of that stuff ourselves – we actually enjoy it.”
Young Empires are about to reach what could be the most exciting point in their career thus far. With a North American tour underway and SXSW booked (where they will join bands like The Trews, The Balconies and Down With Webster in a Canadian showcase), it’s their hard asset – an EP that threads together tracks from the past few years – that is really making 2012 monumental.
“We never really had a chance to sit down and make an album, so we decided to do an EP as an introduction to the band,” Palahnuk comments,“but we do look forward to sitting down and making a proper record.”
With the US and the rest of the world waiting until February 21 for the official release of the 6-song Young Empires ‘introduction’, let us be glad that this group calls Canada home.
Young Empires will celebrate the release of Wake All My Youth at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern February 3rd with Bravestation, Honhee Honhee and Paradise Animals
