Within the past seven months, Young the Giant has performed at the MTV “Video Music Awards” and had a song featured on the hit TV show, “Glee.” You could debate that the California-based indie rock band is becoming “mainstream.” It seems the band could care less what label others try to associate with its music, so long as people listen and enjoy it.
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“We don’t intend on being mainstream, we don’t intend on being super indie, we’re just us,” lead singer Sameer Gadhia told me on “The Ralphie Radio Show.” “We don’t discriminate; we’re very open with the application of the music.”
With “Cough Syrup” covered during a scene on “Glee” where a character almost commits suicide, Young the Giant found out that there are issues far greater than “mainstream” that the band’s music can help address.
“We were a little bit confused at first that [‘Glee’] would choose one of our songs,” admitted drummer François Comtois. “Then we received the treatment and saw that it was dealing with a subject that, not necessarily like close to home, but something super important for us.”
Comtois noted that the band is big on education, and cited bullying as something that can take its toll on the psyche of kids trying to learn and develop.
“It made it a lot easier for us to say yes at that point,” he continued. “We saw [the treatment] and it was just kind of like, ‘Oh of course.’ There’s no hesitation in a situation like that.”
Despite the fact that the band is still gaining new fans off its self-titled debut, Comtois said the band is already working on new material. Young the Giant is debuting three new songs each night of its current tour, which runs through the end of April. The group began working on the tracks during a three-month break prior to this current stretch of dates, and has other songs besides the three that are in various stages of completion.
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