 by Rob van Alstyne
Despite what crotchety embittered types are fond of saying, youth is not always wasted on the young. I’ve got the proof right here in my hands in the form of The Dark is Light Enough, the debut EP by local youngsters White Light Riot. A six-song treatise in joyously rocking songs, WLR’s tunes are full of the wide-eyed ambition and impassioned verve that only those whose world still feels like its made up more of possibilities than responsibilities are capable of displaying—which only makes sense considering half the group are still teenagers.
 What
the group lacks in legal drinking rights, however, they more than make up for
in musical chops. Able to switch on a dime from channeling the currently-in-vogue-dance-rock-strut
of the Franz Ferdinand school (the funky breakdown in the middle of “Bitter
Beginning”), to anglicized big-hearted balladry of the Coldplay variety
(the lithe placidity of “Tuning Out”), White Light Riot appear poised
to follow in the illustrious line of high-school-bands-turned-real-deal-local-music-phenoms
trail blazed by the Plastic Constellations back in the ‘90s.
As it turns out, the roots of White Light Riot extend even further back than
the days of pep rallies and study hall periods. “My little brother Mark
is the drummer,” explains vocalist/guitarist Mike Schwandt, the old man
of the band at all of 23. “So him and I have been playing music together
basically our whole lives. We were raised in a musical family. We were writing
songs together by the time I was finishing high school and he was actually just
starting. My freshman year of college I started playing in another band but
I realized that all of the material we worked on was just the songs I wrote
with Mark anyway so might as well just be playing with him. I tried to avoid
that for a while just because we always tend to fight. It’s definitely
a bit of a sibling rivalry thing with the two of us.”
Eventually the brothers Schwandt added two classmates of Mark’s in the
form of lead guitarist Joe Christenson and bassist Dan Larsen and the stage
was set. The only thing that remained, other than plenty of brother vs. brother
fisticuffs, was to start making a record. Enter local music fixture Erik Appelwick—of
hot local bands of the moment the Hopefuls and Vicious Vicious, and producer
for the likes of Fitzgerald and Tapes ‘N’ Tapes.
 “We
were searching for a place to record and we just started listening to local
stuff to find what we thought was the best produced,” explains Schwandt
of what would come to be the group’s fortuitous pairing with Appelwick.
“I heard the Hopefuls album and thought it sounded great. I just sent
Erik a demo and I guess he liked what he heard. We came in with these songs
but Erik helped us see what they really were. He trimmed the fat and helped
us realize what mattered most in the songs.”
Appelwick’s guiding hand in the producers chair is felt strongly throughout
the proceedings, with the dollops of bouncy glockenspiel and mellotron overdubs
coating the guitar/bass/drums core in pop sweetness inevitably recalling the
similarly slick sounds of his own Vicious Vicious album, Don’t Look
So Surprised. It should be noted, however, that all the instruments are
played by the youthful foursome themselves in what was more of a collaborative
process than a Svengali-styled-bootcamp.
“Everyone is so young and so green compared to Erik and all the people
he knows so we all respected him from the get go,” admits Schwandt of
the groups recording experience. “We had our own vision, too, though;
you’d be surprised how many ideas we had coming into the recording that
we were already pretty dead set on. We listened to his suggestions and always
tried them out and we always found a middle ground. There was a lot of mutual
respect; Erik really let us work with him collaboratively rather than either
of us dictating to one another.”
Appelwick’s expertise, coupled with the group’s reckless abandon,
has resulted in some of the finer pop moments of the year. The elder Schwandt’s
clearly enunciated croon feels radio-ready and the backing of his compatriots,
always perfectly simpatico, demonstrates a cohesiveness of sound and vision
Schwandt thinks has a lot to do with the group’s open channels of communication
and the typically prickly conflicts inherent in brotherdom.
 “Mark
and I fight for the dumbest reasons just because we’re brothers—I
never fight with anyone else at all,” says the elder Schwandt. “It
always escalates to the point of ridiculousness, so in that way I would say
there’s a lot more tension than other bands might have. At the same time,
though, no one is afraid to say exactly what’s on their mind, because
Mike and I always leave it all out there. It kind of opens it up for anyone
to always express an opinion. I’m definitely not the parental figure of
the group, even though I’m three years older, I’m probably the least
mature of all of us.”
Immature or not, Schwandt’s goals for the future of the band are downright
adult, and as lofty as the music WLR has managed to crank out in their still
nascent career. “To tell you the truth we never saw this as a hobby,”
replies Schwandt when asked if he feels the band has become more of a “real”
endeavor since releasing their first album. “Ever since we started really
writing it’s been the primary focus for us. Mark and I come from a really
musical family: my father was offered a record deal when he was young and the
band he was in didn’t take it because they opted to go off to college
instead—he’s always regretted that decision. So we’ve really
got the support from our family to just go for it. We’re all so in love
with music that I know I want to do this with the rest of my life. This is just
the next step. Right now we just want people to know that we’re starting
something.” ||
White Light Riot perform on Thu., Dec. 22 at the Turf Club with Action vs.
Action and the TV Sound. 9 p.m. $4. 21+. The Corner of University and Snelling
Ave., St. Paul. 651-647-0486.
For more information on White Light Riot, head over to
their official website at WhiteLightRiot.com.
Head on over to www.pulsetc.com to download an mp3 of
White Light Riot’s song “Bitter Beginning.”
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