When asked what a Cherub show is like, co-Cherubs Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber can’t help but laugh. After a little thought, Kelley answers, “Like running through a corn maze backwards, naked.” Huber quickly adds that they have “splash areas.” If the two members of the electro indie group are to be believed, the Cherub experience is something truly unique and out of the ordinary.
The Tennessee natives made their debut with the album MoM & DaD, released in 2012. Since then, with the release of their hot single “Doses and Mimosas” and their breakout album Year of the Caprese in 2014, the duo have skyrocketed to fame and popularity. With past and current influences circling an odd mixture of boy bands and heavy metal, the two friends have grown to produce more than out-of-the box synths and mixes. They seem to have simply crushed the box completely.
Now the duo has embarked on its transcontinental So… You DTF? Tour, featuring Hippie Sabotage and Shooka. They aim to come to town this Friday, November 20, when they headline the Earl Warren Showgrounds.
This Santa Barbara show marks a couple of firsts for the pair of producers. The upcoming show at the showgrounds is the first show they’ve done in Santa Barbara as a headlining standalone act since leading the New Noise 2014 Block Party. Kelley and Huber couldn’t be more excited to be back in Southern California. They are “pumped to get into the [Californian] vibes” and are coming out with “dicks swinging.”
This tour is also Kelley’s and Huber’s first time touring with a live band. The pair, who has spent the past five years touring as a strong duo, is now part of a four-piece band. The two new members are good friends Jordan Bartlett on keys and guitar and Nick Curtis on drums. Together they are integrating more songs and introducing newer tracks that they’ve never played on tour before.
This addition of two new band members, as well as the rest of the touring crew that comprises 13 hardworking individuals, has sparked its own new set of touring adventures, excitement, and comical stories. While the duo commented that most of the stories shouldn’t be told, they admitted that a few complications arose with the new bandmates. “I wake up and Nick, the drummer, is just in my bed,” Kelley recalls. It seems that Huber has a more serious issue with the add-ons. “JB [Jordan Bartlett] eats all my Pop-Tarts, and it’s not cool,” he said. Not cool, indeed.
Cherub’s music inspires all manner of wild behavior, and a couple of stories Kelley and Huber shared involved passionate fans launching objects up onstage. Laughing, the duo reminisced that once “someone threw a cast on the stage, and we were just like, Are you sure you want to do that?”
The Cherub sound is as individualistic and charming as the people that create it and the kind of live show it produces. Kelley describes it as very particular cuts of steak — yes, the red meat that many a man’s man greatly enjoys — with the music of Cherub having only the most desirable bits of the cow. “We’ve got the fillet and the sirloin … tender and soft,” he said.
The tender and soft Cherub will be “showing our friendship” to the fans at Earl Warren and will guide us all to a freakier you and me.
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Cherub plays Earl Warren Showgrounds (3400 Calle Real) with Hippie Sabotage and Shooka on Friday, November 20, at 8 p.m. For more info, visit cherubsb.nightout.com.