Get To Know: California Wives

As I was watching the MTV Video Music Awards the other night, I was quite underwhelmed to say the least. In fact, it was quite painful for me to watch.

Make it stop.

The only highlights I saw were hearing Passion Pit in a Taco Bell commercial and this commercial for Sharpie:

So this was me as I was watching it:

“This is beautiful!! There’s still hope!!”

…and this is what I tweeted:

It was love at first listen. I bought their album immediately! So who’s that band in the Sharpie commercial, you ask? They go by the name of California Wives. Let’s get to know them!

Hailing from Chicago, IL, California Wives just may be the next band to buzz about. Singer/keyboardist Jayson Kramer left behind a promising career in medicine for a professional go at music. “I felt like I was asleep for years.” says Jayson. “A weird thing happened when I finished my MCAT and all the studying stopped. I was completely honest with myself for the first time in my life and recognized that I had no desire to go on to medical school. This is when I took a more serious turn toward music, which is something I realized I should have been doing all along.” Looks like a little risky business pays off!

The band’s debut album, Art History, features tracks produced by Claudius Mittendorfer, who has worked with the likes of Interpol, Muse and Neon Indian. My first thought while listening to the album was that it transported me back to the time when I first fell in love with 90’s alternative (Smashing Pumpkins) and 80’s synthpop but that wasn’t their intention. “We’re not trying to sound like another band, we’re not trying to invoke a certain decade. We are doing what we’re doing because it feels right to us,” Kramer says.

So what about that band name? Let’s be honest: it kind of reminds you of those crazy over-Botoxed housewives of California. I apologize, let’s not ruin this moment. Kramer told Billboard: “Our name is like a symbol. When you say TV on the Radio, you’re not thinking of a TV on the radio. It’s just a symbol. What I want people to focus on is what our music sounds like. We could’ve called ourselves Sidewalk and it would’ve been the same thing.”

Check out Art History here.

What do you think of California Wives? Did you see their Sharpie commercial during the VMAs?