This Wild Life makes love songs for the disconsolate
This Wild Life—the duo of Kevin Jordan and Anthony Del Grosso—didn’t plan to be acoustic rockers. “We started off as a four-piece band with me on electric guitar and Anthony on drums,” says Jordan. “It slowly evolved, or devolved, into the two of us playing guitars and singing harmonies. It started when I did an acoustic version of ‘Ripped Away,’ one of our full-band songs, at a show. People liked the timbre of my voice, when I wasn’t shouting to be heard over the sound of the band.
“We wrote songs on acoustic but never played them outside of our bedrooms. When we decided to be an acoustic duo, we had to learn how to play standing up with a guitar strap. It was a slow transition.”
This Wild Life shows became known for the emotional intensity Jordan and Del Grosso create with two guitars and two voices. On record, they flesh out the arrangements with drums, bass and string, arrangements created with their producer, Copeland’s Aaron Marsh. On Low Tides, their current outing, they move from simple folk strumming to cinematic pop. “We wanted a stripped-down sound, but Aaron told us the songs might be more captivating if we layered them up a bit,” he says. “We decided to see where the big, open arrangements took us.”
The album’s intimate songs are delivered with an expansive assortment of acoustic and electric sounds that intensify Jordan’s candid lyrics and the duo’s burnished harmonies. “The feelings we put in the songs are difficult to get off your chest,” he says. “You have to deal with the repercussions you get when writing about people in your life and worrying how they’ll react to it. So far, people appreciate the sincerity and openness of what we sing about, even when it’s brutally honest.”
—j. poet
