Young the Giant backstage at the Conan O’Brien show, 2014. Photo by Van Robinson.
Published in Nylon Guys Magazine February 2014.
With a much-buzzed-about new album, Young The Giant perch on the precipice of greatness.
Conan O’Brien’s hair is a crimson parabola, a giant ginger tsunami that crashes toward the studio audience with each spastic punch line. Backstage at Warner Bros. Studio 15, his wave is amplified tenfold on a nearly two-story bobblehead. The colossal toy towers over the technical crew as they count down cues during the host’s monologue. Meanwhile, ecstatic rockers Young the Giant prepare for their performance, now just 35 minutes away.
In the greenroom, drummer François Comtois clutches his sticks as singer Sameer Gadhia warms up his voice. “We’re not nervous at all,” Gadhia says, gamely navigating an area packed with family and friends. His confidence is not completely unfounded—by now, the band has broadcast their explosive tracks on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the Today show. Their second studio album, Mind Over Matter (out now), was helmed by esteemed producer and musician Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who has played with Beck, Nine Inch Nails, and M83, to name a few. They’re here this afternoon to perform their latest lurching, guitar-driven rocker, “It’s About Time.”
Twenty minutes to air. Christina Applegate strolls by in casualwear, enters her dressing room, and emerges a few minutes later in high heels and an off-the-shoulder blue dress. She walks past YTG’s robustly bearded bassist Payam Doostzadeh, then a Christmas tree topped by another plastic Conan head, and onto the soundstage to shill for Anchorman 2.
Despite the band’s professional acclaim, moms are still moms backstage, fixing collars and looking proudly upon their rock star sons’ calculated scruffiness. Guitarist Eric Cannata’s dad chats up Conan bandleader Jimmy Vivino, whom the elder Cannata has known since childhood. “My dad was always telling Jimmy to check out our band,” Eric says, with just 15 minutes until showtime, “so now it’s great that he gets to see us perform on his show.”
The Los Angeles-based band is from Orange County, California — Irvine, to be precise. It’s a hermetic city populated by expansive corporate complexes and numerous Bed Bath & Beyonds. Academic types know Irvine as the onetime home to the late Algerian-French deconstructionist thinker Jacques Derrida, whose philosophies aimed to break apart conventional means of perception.
Young the Giant, too, fought against the homogeny of their local music scene. “When we were in high school, Orange County was full of post-hardcore bands,” Gadhia says, “so we were trying to do anything to not sound like that.” Their first band, The Jakes, got them signed to Roadrunner Records, whose roster typically showcased metal bands. “When we first got signed, we were like, ‘Um, Slipknot is signed to this label,’ but they were really supportive of us,” Comtois says. Then came Young the Giant, the group’s 2009 reinvention as a multilayered rock outfit, a band that shares more in common with fellow Orange County expats Local Natives than the suburban thrash of Thrice.
Five minutes to air. The band groups near the door to get amped and connected. “I’m actually a little nervous,” Doostzadeh quietly confesses, just seconds before they’re led out of the greenroom and past a man dressed as Minty, the Candy Cane. The band walks down the corridor and onto Stage 15 to the sound of Vivino’s interlude music. Comtois perches behind his set. Doostzadeh picks up his bass.
Guitarists Cannata and Jacob Tilley position themselves on either side of the stage, while Gadhia stands front and center, holding a tambourine in one hand and gripping the mic stand with the other. The cameras are pulled into place, the audience cheers, and the lights come up. O’Brien holds the vinyl of their new album, flips his hair back, and then makes an announcement.
“Please welcome...Young the Giant.”