Young Empires

The tale of self-proclaimed Haute rockers Young Empires is quite unconventional. Their story began in the fall of 2009, when bass guitarist Jake Palahnuk placed an ad on Craigslist looking for like-minded musicians in Toronto, Canada. The selected respondents were guitarist Aaron Ellingson and lead vocalist Matthew Vlahovich.
“We never really talked about music,” Aaron says. “It’s one of those things in retrospect that’s genius. Everything with this band is about synchronicity. We didn’t have any preconceptions. We just wanted to get in a room and make noise.”

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The trio began rehearsing and booked their first gig within two weeks of forming, putting pressure on the musicians to write viable songs, practice relentlessly, and become savvy in sampling and analog drum machine programming. “Being without a drummer in our formative years was challenging, but retrospectively, it gave us an opportunity to take advantage of electronic kick drums that rattled club sound systems and sample percussion rhythms from West Africa to create a diverse music palette,” Matthew explains. Taking advantage of the proliferation of inexpensive recording devices, the band isolated themselves on a rainy weekend in January 2010 in a motel room and self-produced and recorded four demos that gained significant attention on the blogosphere and hit the charts on Hype Machine.

The upcoming two years proved to be a globe trotting adventure for the trio, being jet set to cities including Bogota, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Stockholm, New York and Miami to perform with the likes of Jamiroquai, Foster The People, Chromeo, Tanlines, Bag Raiders, Sleigh Bells, and Dragonette, and at festivals like SXSW, CMJ, and Brighton’s The Great Escape. “We are incredibly fortunate to live at a time when online music-sharing can foster rapid fan growth around the globe. We are also really lucky that our music has resonated so well globally and is not confined to any particular geographic location”, Matthew explains. Between tours, Young Empires wrote, recorded and mixed their debut EP, Wake All My Youth. Although none of the members had any background in engineering or producing, the group did everything on the disc except the final mastering. This lends a distinctive edge to the glittering, electro-tinged indie rock numbers. The songs, culled from a span of nearly two years, also reveal the group’s evolution, showcasing various aspects of the musicians as they’ve more closely discovered their sound.

Wake All My Youth was released via Pirates Blend/Sony Canada in February 2012 and two singles from the EP, “White Doves”, and “We Don’t Sleep Tonight” have quickly climbed the alternative and pop radio charts, both landing in the top 10 at alternative radio. Additionally, the band has made waves in the sync world highlighted by multiple placements on primetime network TV, EA Sports FIFA 13, and the CTV where “White Doves” served as a theme song for their broadcast of the London Olympics. The success in Canada has spilled over into the U.S. as the band is currently charting on AAA radio and Votiv/Atlantic Records will release a new version of Wake All My Youth in spring 2013. Although Young Empires have been developing both their recordings and their evocative live performances for the past few years, the musicians feel that the EP is only a taste of what’s to come. The band is currently in the process of writing their debut album and recently quit their full time jobs. They are poised to continue to map out a unique sonic territory within indie and pop music, combining syncopation and melodrama to excellent effect, Young Empires are weavers of disparate indie threads that move crowds every show.