By: Alexander Wheeler
Features Editor
It was the end of my freshman year of college; right after I got settled back in at home when I opened iTunes to see what the newest edition to the soundtrack of my summer would be. I opened the alternative tab on iTunes’ interface and lone behold, a little EP called Love Songs Drug Songs by X Ambassadors was staring right back at me. I instantly succumb to their insane and edgy alt-rock.
They followed up Love Songs Drug Songs with another EP in early 2014 called The Reason which also soared the top of all of my playlists. It wasn’t until their second EP that I realized that the band hailed from the same region of New York as me – they originated from Ithaca, NY which is roughly an hour from Elmira, NY – where I grew up.
I was lucky enough to catch them headlining a show in Hamden, CT last April at this small and gritty venue called The Space. Needless to say, they killed it live. Even with modest expectations they blew it out of the water.
Along with another performer on their label, KIDinaKORNER, Jamie N Commons, the band released the single “Jungle.” The song was a huge hit over the summer of 2014, becoming one of the anthems of the World Cup, was featured in the advertising campaign for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s film Hercules and was almost on everyone’s Spotify playlist. Even Jay-Z did a remix of the song.
Around Christmas time this year, X Ambassadors announced that they would be coming to Upstate Concert Hall in Clifton Park, NY and I immediately purchased my tickets. A few days before the concert, I decided to see if I could get in contact with the band’s management and conduct an interview prior to the performance and luckily, their management contacted me back and told me to come to the venue right after sound check; before the doors opened.
I was brought out back and was able to sit down with this band that I’ve been listening to for about two years now and the experience was instantaneously as surreal as I expected it to be. The band, comprising of members Sam Harris (vocals, saxophone), Casey Harris (keys), Noah Feldshuh (guitar) and Adam Levin (percussion) immediately welcomed me and offered me a seat before the interview started.
Once the interview started, the band and I took it right from the top.
Q: How long have you guys been performing together?
Sam: The band really started in 7th grade when Noah and I were in our first band together. We’ve known each other since we were six. Casey and I come from a very musical family. We performed all through high school and then we moved to New York for school and we met Adam and it went from there. We met him the first week of school and we slipped a demo of our stuff under his door.
Q: How has touring all over the country felt?
Adam: We’ve done like three or four full American tours. We’ve been to the Western side of the country. This has been the best way for us to promote ourselves; better than blogs or the Internet.
Casey: It’s been an adventure. We’ve drove through blizzards and all of that. You really tour with your life in your hands.
Q: What was the best experience you’ve had on tour?
Noah: Definitely a run we did in Montreal. We did a tour with Imagine Dragons and that was a big arena tour. Most of these arenas let people in slowly and it takes people a while to find their seats. This venue though for some reason they let everyone in before we started playing. There were about eighteen thousand people there.
Sam: My favorite show was the first time we went to Norfolk, VA. A radio station called us down to see if we could do a show at this waterpark. We drove down and the show was in the middle of the waterpark. There were hundreds of people there that had to pay sixty dollars to come to the park to see us. They were singing along to us; it was very surreal. As we were leaving we heard our song on the radio.
Q: The singer from Imagine Dragons supposedly heard a song of yours on the radio and wanted to get in contact with you guys, was that true?
Sam: It was actually the whole band. We thought it was just Dan that heard it, but it was the whole band.
Casey: They corrected us on that.
Sam: They were doing a show in Norfolk and one of the guys from that radio station was driving them around and they were listening to us and they were like ‘Wow, this is incredible,’ and they showed it to Alex Da Kid, who is our producer and the head of our label; the head of their label and he really liked it. We met with him and the rest is history.
Q: You guys also toured with Panic! At the Disco as well. How was that?
Sam: That was the tour where we were driving through all of those blizzards at like ten miles an hour during this polar vortex in the middle of the country. We were going back and forth between them and Imagine Dragons and at one point we drove across the country in two days.
Me: Hopefully there was a bathroom on the bus.
Sam: Laughs. We don’t even have a bus.
Casey: The Panic! At the Disco shows were great. Some girl fainted during one of their shows while we were touring with them.
Q: Where did you guys get your name from?
Everyone: Laughs.
Sam: It is actually a pretty boring story. Adam came up with it.
Adam: We were Ambassadors for years, when we were playing in college. When we signed to Interscope they told us we had to change our name due to a couple more established acts with the name. They said it would be easier to change it. It was like brain storming random names – we wanted to keep our name the same. We had that song in Norfolk and we wanted to keep the name as close as possible.
Q: What’s next for you guys? When is your new album coming out?
Sam: It will be coming out this year.
Casey: It’s top secret. We would have to kill you if you found out.
Noah: It’s actually top secret, even to us.
Sam: We have around forty to fifty songs written. Some more finished than others. It’s all about writing, writing, writing and then chopping it down.
Q: “Jungle” really took off over the summer – it was pretty big.
Sam: I think it could’ve done more. It really did a lot for us and opened a lot of doors for us. We couldn’t be happier with what it did for us.
Casey: Plus Jay-Z was on it.
Sam: That was crazy. I think the problem with the song is that more people knew the song than they knew the band, but we have so much more material that we’re really happy with and that we think can do really well with.
Q: How would you guys describe your sound?
Sam: I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Our style changes from song to song, but there is something about the way we have been doing stuff lately that is kind of scrappy; nothing sounds very polished. That is something I’ve always loved. Our style has a little more grit to it. It’s more aggressive than a lot of other stuff out there now.
Me: It has a little bit of edge to it.
Sam: I’d like to think so.
Q: Any last comments?
Sam: New record – this year!
After the interview I was able to hang out with the band for a little bit, score some autographs and wish them luck on the stage.
The group opened for Andrew MacMahon and their set-list was comprised of mostly songs off their released EPs, one new song, “Naked,” and the infamous “Jungle.”
The crowd at Upstate Concert Hall ate up X Ambassadors’ edgy style and lined up in droves to check out the band afterwards and to purchase some of their music that they had available.
I managed to catch up with Noah and Sam right before I left the venue and they both told me the same thing: “We’ll see you soon.” I’ll hold you to that boys; I’ll hold you to that.
SO glad they are finally getting the attention they deserve. “Renegades” is a great song – as are all their other songs. If you haven’t checked them out, they are definitely worth checking out!