What does “New Wave” even mean anymore? Unsure if younger generations even know the genre label, I asked myself that question recently as I spoke to the founders of Above Jupiter, a young band in every sense of the word. Instead of going retro, I asked them what they would call the choppy, stomping, synth-tinged, and hook-filled music they made — so reminiscent of sounds that captivated me in the 1980s. Graham Burks III, the group’s singer and drummer, didn’t miss a beat. “We’ve been calling it art pop.”
To clarify, he added, “We’re trying to make popular enjoyable music that doesn’t really fit into a category. It’s our own art. Other artists that used that label have been like, DEVO and David Bowie — artists that are hard to fit into a specific genre.”
Those two acts are perfect reference points for the fundamentals of their sound, as are influences they list on their website like Talking Heads, Beck, and Gorillaz. The end result is a beat-driven soundscape with equal parts slashing guitar, skronky synth, and cool singing that lives in a kind of timeless pop utopia. And it’s not only timeless, it’s literally ageless. One would never guess that these musicians are all between 14 and 16 years old.
Their debut single was celebrated only last month in Chris McCoy’s Music Video Monday column. “‘Details’ is a super catchy rock song about ‘going off the rails’ if you don’t have the basics nailed now, which these kids definitely do,” McCoy wrote, noting that the group’s bassist and co-founder Noah Hand directed the video, being “a recent Indie Memphis Youth Film Festival alum who learned to animate at Cloud901.”
“I do film,” Hand told me, “and the video was all directed and written by me. I’m really glad how that turned out. It’s all my vision.”
The band, which also includes Zariya Scullark on guitar and Desmond Coppin on keys, was started by Burks and Hand. “We were in fourth grade or fifth grade when we put together our first project, which was going to be a duo called the Breeze,” Burks noted. “That didn’t end up working out, but around that time we recorded four songs as demos. And as time went on we got our two other band members and the songs have just evolved into what they are now.”
As it turns out, all four of the musical wunderkinder attend the Stax Music Academy, but that’s been peripheral to the band’s formation. As Burks explained, “We all happen to attend Stax Academy but I wouldn’t say that the band was formed through Stax Academy. I mean, I’ve been playing with Desmond since I was four, and we were in our first band together. So really, it’s just a coincidence that we all ended up at Stax and I think it’s just because that’s a really amazing music program.”
Hand added, “I feel like the music of Stax and all that stuff that we play over there correlates with our music and affects us. The way we evolved was through that music. And I’m very glad that we have that outlet, because it helps us learn the basics.”
Certainly there’s some serious training and talent behind the group’s home-recorded tracks, which will soon be available Friday, January 12, when Above Jupiter release their debut EP, Demo. There will be a release show at the Hi-Tone (Big Room) that night with Shorty and The Grooves and The Contradictions also playing. Given the polished final product, and the futuristic shimmer of tracks like “Meteor Beach” and “Midnight Sun,” the EP’s title is somewhat ironic.
“The title track, ‘Demo,’ is something that we would show aspiring members of the band when we were trying to recruit them,” Burks noted. “‘Demo’ was always the working title of that piece, because it’s a demo of what we’re trying to go for. We were running with that title for long enough that it just kind of stuck. And I feel like it was a pretty interesting choice to make the title track of the of the EP an instrumental song. That means we can go in more directions with the EP instead of being locked into the style of a title track. Not everything has to be the same.”
And, with that sentiment as a mission statement of sorts, expect a lot more not-the-same music from these young folks in the future.