Alexander Beggins of Wild Child didn’t hesitate for a minute when asked how he would describe a Wild Child live show.
“Loud, rowdy soul.”
On Wednesday Feb. 3, Wild Child will be filling Gainesville’s own the High Dive with their infectious bits of soul.
Wild Child started five years ago as a duo comprised of Alexander Beggins and Kelsey Wilson. The two were on tour together with different bands when they realized that their writing styles meshed. Soon, Wild Child was born as a duo in the back of a tour van, then turned to a five-piece band, then a six-piece and finished off as a seven-piece. The group collected members, all of which brought a new sound into the mix. The final product being indie-pop music with lyrics that Beggins describes as “perfectly honest”.
With their newest release, Fools, the band aimed to incorporate the bigger sounds that could be found in the live show onto the record.
“For the amount we play live, it’s more fun for us to have a bigger, faster sound that we can actually see people getting into at the shows,” Beggins said. “In the studio, we had the live show in mind.”
Lyrically, the band pulls from their personal experiences to deliver lyrics that are inherently different from the sounds that accompany them. The lyrics provide an honest look into love and life, specifically the breakup of Kelsey Wilson and her fiancée on Wild Child’s October release. The melodies may seem cheerful and light-hearted, but when the lyrics are examined, they are an honest representation of life and heartbreak.
Hailing from Austin, Texas, Wild Child was thrown into the festival scene and brought up as one of the greatest indie bands to hit Austin, which is saying a lot seeing as Austin is considered the live music capital of the United States. Wild Child broke the barriers and played high-profile festivals, but still remained true to their roots.
“I personally like a smaller, more intimate show,” Beggins said. “I think you can really connect with people much easier when you can see everyone’s face in the crowd. When you look out at the crowd at a large festival it’s just like a mass of people and you kind of get into your own zone.”
Beggins recalls the last time Wild Child played a show in Gainesville specifically because the band created a song called “We Love Gainesville,” feeding off of their adoring crowd.
Sure, “We Love Gainesville” didn’t make Fools, but the music that inhabits this new album is larger, and more boisterous than anything Wild Child has delivered before. With songs crafted for the live show, the High Dive will experience a bit of the loud, rowdy soul that Beggins described.
“It’s contagious when you see someone actually having fun at their job,” Beggins said. “People get to see us do what we love to do. We just get up there and really enjoy playing the songs that we’ve written. There is a sweet connection. People in the crowd can see that we are just normal people playing music together.”
Photos courtesy of: Wild Child Facebook
