Music fans, there is some fun and catchy tunes erupting from the state of Utah. A band called Spirit City, made up of Nate Young, Austin Young and Cori Place, seem to be successfully winning people over with their indie pop sound. Fans can get a glimpse of their appeal from their singles, We’re All Insane and Do What You Want. However, the measure of a band is from their musicians. Members Cori and Nate shared a bit on their musical journey.
Their origin story was quite a simple one for Cori. “We really love playing music and we believe in ourselves. Personally, I didn’t want to be 40 years old and wish I would have spent more time playing or writing music in my 20’s, no regrets! Ha-Ha.” Together, the men are making it happen as best they can. They are doing well so far it looks like.
As far as their music goes, Cori elaborated on their proudest work to date. “Definitely our new album, “We’re All Insane.” I love it because it’s fun and quirky, but also very telling of things that we have and are currently going through. Also, we have literally put everything we have into it.” A good song with dedication behind it, a perfect mix.
Musicians love a good venue. Throughout the world there are so many highly sought after places to jam out in. Cori noted his ideal favorites. “Personally, I would love to play festivals (Coachella, Bonnaroo…etc). It would be so rad to see all the other bands and just be a part of the artistry. It seems like those environments really help all the acts elevate their performance.”
Even as successful musicians, not every show is up to par. “This may sound cliché but playing to a crowd of 10 people really sucks. We played a show like that once and it was terribly awkward. It was dead silent between our songs and when there are only a few people in the room, eye contact gets really weird.” Almost seems like a middle school dance moment, not fun at all!
In the modern music stratosphere, the art form has taken some vastly wild turns. Cori gave his take on it all. “I have mixed feelings on it. Some days I think it’s the best and other days I am all doom and gloom. I feel like some current music lacks emotion and connection. It’s really hard for me to get into a band or artist if I don’t connect to them on an emotional level.” Somehow, the trend in music is a sort of yin and yang push show. Some of the art taps into the lyricism, some the instrumentation and most fall into the music for the sake of music. It is an interesting time for the medium to be so accessible.
Beyond music, both Cori and Nate enjoy other aspects of the art universe. “Have you seen our album photoshoot for ‘We’re All Insane?’ … We love to express ourselves in any way we can. We love being quirky and letting our ‘weird’ side shine through. We also had a lot of fun filming the music video for Do What You Want, a sort of comedic short story type film, which will premiere soon. Our friend Eric Thayne did a great job directing that. [We] love film, and it would be awesome to someday have the budget to create multiple short films and mini documentaries and work with some great people in that medium. [We] want to push our limits as long as we write music. We definitely did that while writing ‘We’re All Insane.’ It makes things fresh and exciting.”
Inspiration comes easy for Cori, he shared a few of his favorites. “Hmmm, [I] probably [have] too many to mention. I really love Bruce Springsteen. His energy live is amazing! Also, his songwriting is rad too. Sometimes I like to pretend I am a punk rocker like Billy Idol or The Ramones but we won’t get into that, Ha-Ha.”
When not fooling around with the music business, the men still remain hard at work. Cori mentioned some of his doings throughout a day. “I am going to write some lyrics for some new stuff we are working on and then probably hang out with my fiancé. We have so many things going on right now! It’s all really rad. We are working on our live set, pushing our upcoming release and planning some west coast tour stuff for later in the year.”
Spirit City are the gentlemen who are working their craft and enjoying it all the while. Their music, which is perfectly fun and addicting, will be tunes to pay attention to as their place in the space grows. Keep an eye out or better yet, go see these gentlemen work their magic live!
Jam On.
