One year ago, East Nashville’s *repeat repeat met with its then-new manager Maxx Cua and decided to spike all its plans. Less than a month before the release of Floral Canyon, a record financed with $10,000 of the band’s own money, Andy Herrin and Jared and Kristyn Corder pulled the plug, shelving it indefinitely to take a gamble on finding a label to buy the project and push it out to a nationwide audience.
“I felt more scared of the idea of it coming out,” says Herrin, the band’s drummer. “So many friends of mine released great records [independently], and then they just go away and never get the recognition they deserve.”
After 14 months, *repeat repeat’s patience is paying off. Floral Canyon, released Sept. 15, is backed by the muscle of Dangerbird Records, the same label that broke indie darlings Fitz and the Tantrums and Silversun Pickups. The album’s lead single, “Girlfriend,” has already been streamed on Spotify a quarter of a million times since its release in August, with nods from Time’s website and a host of alt-weeklies. People outside of Nashville are taking notice, and now, as Jared says, “Bigger things happen faster.”
Back in 2011, Kristyn, a California transplant with a marketing background, met Jared, a broke musician, after a show at 12th & Porter. A whirlwind romance saw the two married a little more than a year later. It was also during this time that Jared Corder and Herrin met as co-workers at the now-defunct FYE on West End. The three would become further linked through East Nashville Underground, a DIY festival founded by Kristyn and Jared Corder that played host to Oh No No, one of Herrin’s bands, as well as Moon Taxi, COIN, The Weeks, Natalie Prass and Margo Price’s pre-solo-career band Buffalo Clover, among a slew of others.
Video of early *repeat repeat performances shows a composure that belies the short amount of time the band had been together. At the group’s public debut in 2014, it was obvious that Kristyn and Jared had taken notes during their interactions with so many bands through the Underground. While some groups will start booking shows as soon as they can get through a whole song, *repeat repeat worked at their craft for more than a year before they started playing out. They solidified their surf-rock sound and their look (Kristyn in ’60s mod-chic and Jared in his surfer-alluding black-and-white-striped shirt), and came out swinging with a website, promo photos, a record (Bad Latitude) and a single ready for airplay.
“The thing that struck me about it was the seriousness with which [Jared] presented this band,” says Dan Buckley, longtime friend and program director for Lightning 100, who helped get the band’s first single, “12345678,” into rotation. “Yes, absolutely I’m an advocate for them, but it’s been easy. There were no naysayers for the band, which is certainly not true for most of the stuff [we play].”
“I don’t think I’m the best singer in the world, and I don’t think I’m the greatest guitarist in the world,” Jared says, “and unless you have that to [make you] stand out, you have to find another way. The way I want to stand out is having our shit together.”
Floral Canyon shows a highly polished version of the band’s early promise, adding depth to its crisp, tight brand of pop-friendly surf rock with a bit of production magic and interesting instrumental embellishments. “Hooks” is an eerily obsessive song that features Jared’s and Kristyn’s blended voices throughout, while those voices disappear into their own reverb on “Ghost.”
An aggressive dance beat and stacks of synths propel “Animal,” while “Polina Beefman” settles into a slick groove wrapped in stacks of voices. Kristyn does her best Courtney Love growl in the intro of the Hole-esque “Hang It Low.” At the end of the record, the band does its best to blow out your hi-fi with guitar blasts on “Speaker Destroyer.” Heard as a whole, the record does a fine job of showing off the breadth of *repeat repeat’s range within the realm of guitar-based rock, where typically there aren’t a lot of surprises.
Looking forward, the band considers the example of pal Margo Price, who had multiple labels turn down her debut solo album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. After months of shopping the album around, she inked a deal with Third Man Records, whose fan base and industry connections have helped her achieve significant critical and commercial success.
“She got the push that she deserved,” Jared says, “and now she’s playing Saturday Night Live.”
“If you’re trying to be a breakout indie band on a label,” says Kristyn, “I think it’s a good idea for everybody to get a little bit more organized and intentional with their choices.”
In the end, *repeat repeat is banking on meticulous planning. That might seem like the antithesis of the rock-star image, but it’s nevertheless a component of what looks to be a promising music career.
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