Kentucky goofballs turned actually-quite-serious rock contenders White Reaper are the retro-tinged, party-jam masters you didn’t realise your life needed…
White Reaper know how to make an introduction. The garage rockers from Louisville, Kentucky even proclaimed to be The World’s Best American Band once. In fact, that was the title of their second album.
“We wanted it to be the most ridiculous, outlandish statement on the front of our record, just so that people might pick it up,” explains singer and guitarist Tony Esposito. “We’re goofballs. We thought it was funny.”
As first-rate record titles go, White Reaper were on a hot streak. The World’s Best American Band in 2017 had followed the band’s 2015 debut White Reaper Does It Again. But the joke backfired when people believed the group might actually be serious. It’s why their third outing, last year’s You Deserve Love, had a more sober moniker.
“I think we got a little sick of people asking, ‘Do you actually think you’re the world’s best American band? That sounds really cocky.’ This time we were like, ‘Let’s avoid that and make it something nice so that nobody calls us cocky and we can be on our way,’” the 26-year-old laughs.
But the fact that some people bought White Reaper’s piss-taking messiah complex says a lot. Their feel-good slacker jams, balls out spirit and arena ready melodies make for a semi-throwback style that draws comparisons with the power of the Ramones and the breezy harmonies of Cheap Trick.
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Still, the group’s route to the slick tunes plated up on You Deserve Love has taken in some scenery. Growing up in the southeastern U.S. city that gifted the world Muhammad Ali and Kentucky Fried Chicken, Tony befriended three of his four bandmates in his teens. Twin brothers Nick and Sam Wilkerson (drums and bass, respectively) he knew from school, while keyboardist Ryan Halter he’d met playing in a church band. The group went through five or six iterations inspired by acts like LA cult punks the Germs (those ‘70s comparisons are no coincidence) but also the modern sharpness of My Chemical Romance, while being buoyed by Louisville’s supportive scene.
“We were super lucky. There was this all-ages venue in town called Skull Alley,” says the singer. “It was around for six years while we were in high school. So it was kind of miracle timing. It meant that we met all kinds of other kids.”
Having promised their parents that they wouldn’t tour before graduation, they idled down their homeland’s East Coast once diplomas were in hand and were soon making ventures out West. “Things haven’t really stopped since,” adds Tony.
It was a few years ago at South By Southwest that they met Hunter Thompson, a friend of a friend who had let them crash at his house for the festival. The Austin native struck up a fast bond with the group and was soon asked to join as their second guitarist. It makes You Deserve Love White Reaper’s first music to feature the lush textures and fun-loving harmonies of their dual guitar set-up. It’s a relationship that also gave us the album’s title-track. “[It’s] loosely based upon our relationship with Hunter and whether he would join the band or not. It was a hopeful tune that he would,” Tony explains.
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In truth, that track sticks out for its positivity in White Reaper’s catalogue, with the frontman laughing that most of his ideas get pretty dark. You Deserve Love is certainly home to yarns dealing in hard luck and hard love. Ring, for example, is about running into an ex that’s moved on. While 1F, named after a Cincinnati freeway exit, tells a story about starting a relationship with a widow whose husband used to collect classic cars. But far from feeling gloomy, these are undoubtedly soulful, all-American tunes made for singing on open highways and at kicking-out time at the bar.
“I hope that our songs help people ignore whatever other bullshit is going on in their life,” says Tony.
People are taking notice, too. The band will join Pearl Jam and Pixies on their super-sized Euro tour this summer. If it’s a sign of things to come, the singer’s keeping a cool head with his ambitions.
“We want to see how far we can take it,” he says. “We really don’t know what’s obtainable for our band, but we’d all like to find out…”
White Reaper's latest album You Deserve Love is out now.
