We The Living

Here's the edited draft-- I'll link up to the actual article on the Web next Monday.

Hope you guys enjoy it!

They rock and/or roll
We The Living and UWM: A perfect fit

By Amanda Throm

With one album under their belts in the past year, We The Living has been doing wonderfully at making a name for themselves. This Wisconsin-native-currently-living-in-LA band left the crowd, and a few floors up and down Channel in Sandburg Hall, awed by their melodic and hard-to-place sound last Monday.

Lead singer John Paul (J.P.) Roney and drummer Ben Shaefer began as The Profits at UW- Madison. After two of their bandmates left, they added Matt Holmen on guitar and Stefan Benkowski (soon after to be Jasper Austin) on bass and became the We The Living I saw last night. Since then they’ve recorded and released “Heights of Heaven,” an entrancing and amazingly heart-melting album that I’ve not been able to stop listening to since I first heard their sound about 12 hours before seeing them live.

I got a chance to catch up with the band as they arrived on campus and started getting set up. The guys play a different venue every night and play 250 shows this year and cannot imagine it any other way. “Days off are horrible” said Ben.

With a sound that the album produces, I was fascinated as to how these guys all started with their chosen instruments and was very surprised. Jasper, Matt and Ben all started their instruments on their first day of tour or a few days beforehand. J.P. was the only one who had some experience before they started. They knocked me off my feet when they started playing.

Jasper was fun to watch during the show. His facial expressions were a mixture of concentration and pure fun. He is the bass-playing version of Tom Higgenson of Plain White T’s and not just by his attitude on the stage: he looks like him too though I enjoyed watching Jasper play more than a Plain White T’s concert.

Ben rumpled his hair between each song (“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he said after the show, while rumpling his hair) and never quite notices what his face is doing during the set. It was, for lack of a better word, quite entertaining.

Matt had little space to work with on the stage but he made his presence known. During his solos and the interludes, the lights would change and his hands looked like they were moving a mile a minute on that guitar.

J.P. also didn’t have much space to work with but he moved around next to Jasper and Matt smoothly and while at the microphone he sang with all his heart and you could see that on his face.

The guys had no cares on the stage other than what they were doing was something they loved. “Our goal isn’t to make any kind of rock and Roll dream… our goal is to make a living off what we love to do,” said Ben and so far they’ve been successful. “We’re only getting better slightly faster than gas prices are rising,” said J.P. They run their band as a business every day and don’t need or want to be signed with a label to do so. “We don’t want to be making pre-fabricated music. We want to do what we love every day,” said J.P.

J.P said his songs start with a rhythm which spurs an idea that comes with a melody to which he rushes to an instrument and makes a song happen in about 20 minutes. “I’m not like Dashboard Confessional,” said J.P answering how much thought and meaning he puts into a song.

The show began with “Atlantic” and “75 to 17” which happen to be two of my favorite songs. They were just as perfect as the album. I can’t say much more than that. Any other words would be doing the songs injustice.

“Typical,” the first song on “Heights of Heaven,” came next. J.P. connects with every person in the crowd and his voice is just so amazingly different than anything I’ve ever heard that I couldn’t help but watch.

“St. Paul” was stuck in my head for about six hours before the concert started. It sounded better than the album and when J.P. went quiet near the end of the song I could hear everyone singing along, something they said they loved to have happen.

Next came “London Rain” which has a wonderful quality I can’t place and “Best Laid Plans” which was dedicated to Perez Hilton after he mentioned We The Living in his blog. It’s Perez’s favorite song, so it was fitting.

They next performed a Depeche Mode cover followed by “Half The Girl,” which was absolutely amazing. I didn’t realize from the album that the song could be rocked out to so well. After that was “Barometers,” and a Sufjan Stevens cover, both of which were incredible.

The last song of the night was dedicated to the first-timers; myself included. I remember during warm-up, when J.P. started singing “History” I felt as if nothing could sound sweeter and I felt the same when he played it to close out a remarkable night.

“Heights of Heaven” can be bought for less than $10 on iTunes.

We The Living play in the area again at Loyola University in Illinois on April 23, UW- LaCrosse on May 10, and Middleton West High School in Middleton, WI on May 31.