Jason Huber and Jordan Kelley burst out of a tiered cake wearing cowboy hats. Kelley pops and pours champagne. Both men strip down to nothing save metallic underwear, hats and boots.
So begins the NSFW video for “Doses and Mimosas,” the Nashville-based electro-pop band Cherub’s breakout 2012 hit. As the video plays on, it’s clear the song’s a party culture send-up—a Southern “Sexy and I Know It” with love handles.
But Huber and Kelley aren’t looking to be a joke. Two years after Year of the Caprese put them on the map as one of Music City’s few non-country success stories, they’re touring as a four-piece band while working on a new album that will feature more sophisticated instrumentation.
“A lot of the lyrics are tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a fine line,” Huber says. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the music seriously. From the live show, we want people to take that away.”
The current tour includes a two-night engagement at the Jefferson Theater on February 17 and 18. The 48-hour party stands to give the boys a chance to see the city (one they’ve visited before with relish), as well as get a little more creative with the set list.
“We can play things we might not normally play,” Kelley says. “There’ll be a couple of songs we’ll play both nights for the people that can only come one night. But we’ll make it fun for everybody that comes both nights. It’ll be more fun for us too.”
The set list will include a good deal of the duo’s serious songs along with its party anthems, according to Kelley. And it’ll feature Jordan Bartlett, a relative newcomer to the band, on guitar, and drummer Nick Curtis, who has mixed, produced and mastered all of Cherub’s EPs and full-lengths.
The more serious approach to the live show—despite what the lyrics and party atmosphere might indicate—means Cherub takes the stage sober every night, Huber and Kelley say. And it means bringing a rock-band sensibility to the performance that wasn’t there in the past. They’re “slowly getting away from EDM,” as Kelley puts it.
“I’ve actually been able to do less on stage because the other Jordan plays guitar,” he says. “I’m able to take the mic off the stand, kind of walk to each side of the stage and be more of a frontman. Everybody is doing a whole bunch of shit on stage.”
A more serious and collaborative approach to songwriting has taken center stage for Cherub, as well.
“Taking it from the studio, to the song, to making the songs live, it involves everyone equally,” Huber says. “It’s one of those things where everyone does their part—on an album and on stage.”
Bringing live instruments into the fold is nothing new for electronic dance bands. The lines between rock, pop and EDM become more blurred every day. But it certainly points to an evolution in Cherub’s sound, which the duo’s been refining since meeting at Murfreesboro’s Middle Tennessee State University in 2010.
Kelley, originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, and North Carolina-native Huber moved to Nashville soon after they started the band. “The first couple of years touring around as a duo, that started with the two of us in a personal car,” says Kelley. “It’s to the point that we have a bus full of crew members. We couldn’t do it without the crew behind us.”
Touring has taken Cherub across the country and found the musicians success in Europe, where EDM fans are typically surprised to hear electro-pop coming out of Nash-
ville. Audiences tend to skew younger, Huber and Kelley admit, but as they’ve brought in more live instruments and started to look more like a traditional stage act, the demographic has grown— “people up to 60 years old” come to the shows, Huber insists.
It’s a testament to how genres have bent in recent years, with even the most traditional rock fans becoming accustomed to seeing synthesizers and keyboards.
“Even though country music is the dominant genre Nashville is most known for, it has so many other genres, and we are really stoked on this tour,” Huber says.
He points to one of the tour openers, Nashville-based rapper Mike Floss. “You wouldn’t expect his style of music,” says Huber. “It’s cool he’s going on the road and helping broaden people’s perspective.”
New York-based synth-pop artist Gibbz rounds out the bill.
Kelley and Huber are blunt about when their next album will drop. They have no idea. They’ve just played the first few cuts for their record company, Columbia, and are waiting on the initial feedback while they keep humping for Caprese.
“There’s no breaking news as of yet,” Huber says. “We haven’t even named the thing.”
Kelley and Huber both have a laugh when they mention how slow they’ve been to title the record. There’s a joke in there somewhere. But it certainly ain’t on them.
Have a listen to Cherub, here.
The Jefferson Theater
February 17 and 18