Cheers Elephant is a blatantly hook-laden AltPop band that brings a sense of humor and 1960s-era verve to their sound. With reverb-a-plenty and blue-sky harmony vocals, the up-tempo band keeps its big beats front and center. When I say that Cheers Elephant brings a ’60s Pop groove to the table, it is more along the lines of the psychedelic variety, as opposed to the schmaltz of a group like The Letterman or Petula Clark.
While some comparisons to The Flaming Lips may be valid, Cheers Elephant’s open-minded sense of humor takes many forms. Their videos, for instance, can be goofy in the best traditions of The Monkees or early Beatles. And the band — which consists of guitarist and vocalist Derek Krzywicki, lead guitarist Jordan del Rosario, bassist “Travelin’ Matt” Rothstein and drummer Robert Kingsly — does its best to make its live shows a party.
The band is getting some notice after moving from its native Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Some of Cheers Elephant’s music has been recognized by Rolling Stone magazine and NPR and the band was one of the media darlings at this year’s South by Southwest. Music fans have responded, too — the group’s song “Leaves” has been listened to a half million times on Spotify (which has probably garnered the band royalties along the lines of $7.37).
CHEERS ELEPHANT with
THE READY STANCE play MOTR Pub Thursday, July 31. More info
here .
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2014.
