Hailing from Long Beach, CA, This Wild Life is Kevin Jordan and Anthony Del Grosso. Jordan and Del Gross grew up in the tightknit DIY punk scene in Long Beach. They quickly became friends after working at the same musical instrument store, bonding over the music of their teens. The conversations were about hardcore, punk and scream bands such as Thursday, The Used, and Senses Fail. Soon enough, they started their own pop-punk band and made music together as This Wild Life. They played fast, they played loud and they didn’t stand out from the crowd until they did the least “punk” thing possible. It was also bolder than anything in the punk rock rulebook: they got quiet and played acoustically.
The music itself connected with fans, even as it surprised them. They take pride in making music based in hardcore and punk rock, but with wider appeal. In contrast to the harsh music that This Wild Life grew up on, Jordan finds inspiration for his vocals outside the hardcore punk world. “Sara Bareilles is one of my favorites. Maybe people wouldn’t expect that. Or maybe they would,” he laughs.
A big part of who they are as a band is to remain true to their DIY punk ethic. After shows are played, tweets responded to and comments acknowledged online. The band put in the work to gain the support of their fan base. Now, This Wild Life has an army of 80K YouTube subscribers with videos of over 2.75 million views.
Clouded, their debut full-length was recorded with Aaron Marsh of Copeland and will be released on Epitaph on May 27. Clouded maintains the core attributes of their sound – Jordan’s vulnerable, expressive lyrics, DelGrosso’s nimble fingerpicking – while pushing themselves towards more ambitious sounds. “We tried out a string section, pianos, different kinds of guitars, we didn’t want to limit ourselves,” Jordan notes.
