Five years into their career and on the verge of performing their first show at the Ryman, locals Cherub have finally come full circle. The duo's Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber have long been among the hardest-hustling homies on the scene, but the past year-and-a-half has seen the pair rocket from regional club sensations and frat-house favorites to national headliners.
Propelled by their major label debut Year of Caprese and its wistfully hedonistic lead single "Doses & Mimosas" — which, at press time, has racked up a remarkable 27 million spins on Spotify and a couple million views on YouTube, and peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart — Cherub is taking their electronic grooves into new territory, full-band territory, just in time to take the Mother Church stage.
"We got to spend time as an actual garage band," Kelley tells the Scene. "We spent a couple of weeks rehearsing in a garage, as a legitimate garage band. We've never done that. ... We were always more of a living room band, a kitchen band, and now we're a garage band."
"We've been a toilet band too," interjects Huber. "We did that acoustic thing in a bathroom in Mexico. That was — weird."
Regardless of what room they're in, be it the living rooms of Middle Tennessee or theater and festival stages across the country, Cherub has always brought the party. But to bring a full band into the dance scene that's fostered their career to this point? That's a bold move.
Whereas most successful electronic acts these days keep their lineups lean and funnel their budgets into bigger, more elaborate visual productions — video screens, 3D mapping, whatever trending gizmodgery will distract the kids from looking at a lone dude on his laptop — Cherub has opted to err on the side of music.
For a band that's always been more song-oriented and more groove-heavy than their peers in the contemporary dance community, Cherub's move toward (quite literally) more humanity in their stage show should come as no surprise.
"[The production] is kind of an afterthought for us right now," Huber explains. "We're really just concentrating on the music itself. Jordan and I have been playing these songs for the past five years now. But for [drummer] Nick Curtis and [guitarist/keyboardist] Jordan Bartlett, this is all brand-new for them. And it's brand-new for us, really, playing with people, playing with real people onstage instead of just the two of us. So it's been a really exciting process to take these songs that we've been playing for so long, to break them apart and then put them back together again with the full band."
But don't go worrying that Cherub will change all that much. Kelley and Huber aren't in a hurry to make radical changes just yet, even though they've got the ammo to do so now.
As Kelley points out, "It will probably take a couple of tours" before the group totally masters the endeavor, so don't expect a 20-minute "Disco Shit" jam just yet. (But think about how awesome that would be! Dare to dream, dear readers, dare to dream.) The live band situation isn't a sign the band intends to revamp its sound (as they are currently working on the Caprese follow-up) but to make the Cherub sound bigger and more engaging.
"Getting onstage with a bunch of other musicians, starting from scratch and putting sounds out there is a really satisfying feeling," Kelley says. "It is something we've missed, rather I'd say it's always something we've tried to hold on to, and it's just that much more fun for us as musicians and hopefully for the audience."
As anyone around town who knows Kelley and Huber can attest, the pair's success no doubt stems as much from the boundless affability that bleeds into their pop-savvy hooks as it does their funky abilities or the hooks themselves. But as our conversation continues, it becomes evident that the typically cheery duo is more stoked than usual. The energy radiating from their every utterance brims with contagious excitement at the potential to blow out their sound exponentially. The past that culminates in a rise to the Ryman stage Saturday night may have been one helluva party, but the future will be a full-blown adventure.
"We're a real band now!" says Huber.
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