Hot One of the Week: Wild Darling

Let’s get real; most people can appreciate artists like Kaki King, Iron & Wine, and, most notably, Andy McKee. The harmonic and rhythmic experimentation and exploitation that can be accomplished with a simple acoustic guitar is what these guys preach. They find ways to turn this one instrument and their two hands into a full band, capable of seducing seasoned musicians and the average citizen alike. Wild Darling takes influence from these artists and many more, even providing an acoustic soul akin to Jack Johnson. Take note of the instrumental prowess expressed in the videos below and go to the links below to hear more lyrical tracks.

Listen to Wild Darling on BandSoup

Below is an interview with Peter Motzenbecker, owner and operator of Forestry Records, home of Wild Darling.

Pete, you own and operate Forestry Records, the label with which Wild Darling is signed, how did you come upon Wild Darling?

I first met him (Josh/Wild Darling) in some 8 am class during the Spring semester of our sophomore year, around 2009. We didn't really talk all that much mostly because it was an 8 am class and no one really likes 8 am classes, but I could tell he was a cool guy. Fast forward to next Spring and we have a class together again. By this time, I had already started working on developing Forestry. I hadn't really put it out there to many people, but the first website was up and so were our first two releases. So one day before this class, I was working on the website waiting for people to come in and class to start, and Josh was asked me what it was and I explained, and he was like I'm in. Later I heard a demo he had recorded with our other friend and I was like wow, I have to record him, see what I can with this.

What caused you to work with them and even do most of the producing, recording, mixing, and mastering for the releases of the self-titled and the new single, "Ghost"?

So, Josh and I started to become really good friends, we hung out a lot and we started looking for an apartment off-campus with our friend Gary to move into for our senior year. Fast forward to senior year, we were all pumped to have this apartment and we were all pumped to start recording things because we were all audio production majors. During the fall, Josh started to write a good amount of songs, most of which appear on the album, and in the spring, we started recording the self-titled release. We all the guitars and vocals in my bedroom and constructed some sort of mixing space in there as well. We loved it, working whenever we wanted was extremely beneficial for both of us. We ended up finishing it that summer (2011). We first got it mastered by this guy Mark Fitzgerald at this place in Syracuse, but I didn't really like how it came out so we ended up doing it ourselves. Still don't really know how much I like it though!

For 'Ghost', Josh had been working on it for a few months, but didn't really have any other songs and I thought it was probably one of his most marketable songs and really wanted to do it right. So this past December, we went up to Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, NY after failing to really capture a good sound in my bedroom at home. So we spent a day in there with Phil Abbot, who recorded, mixed, and mastered it, and it turned out pretty well.