Officially formed in 2008, the story of Milwaukee by-way-of West Bend indie rock band The Sensationalists actually begins over a decade ago. At various points in the members’ middle school and high school days, they played in an array of projects together—bands like Debt, Drago and Seven Hours Wasted. Though much of the cast is the same, age has changed its priorities, while ushering in an evolution in sound. The Sensationalists front man Jackson Kesy was kind enough to speak with Music Notes about the band’s development, its soon to be released album and the juggling act of wedging band expectations into everyday life.
The bands seems like it’s made up from the remnants of other bands that didn’t work out. What was your mentality with this band? And what led to all you guys meeting up?
Well, we all played together in different bands since high school, but I think this band specifically, we’re getting a lot more serious about music. We’re thinking more in terms of what we can do with recording and what we can do with playing more shows.
This band formed in 2008, then you put out an EP and played out a lot before going on a hiatus recently, right?
I don’t think there was ever really a hiatus. For a brief time we kind of stopped playing shows and started working on the songs we wanted to put on our album. The shows were kind of becoming counterproductive to anything. We weren’t really drawing anybody because we didn’t have anything released yet.
Are you in the process of recording at this point?
We actually finished recording a full-length album of 10 songs with Shane Hochstetler from Call Me Lightning at Howl Street Recordings in Bay View. We just got the final mix of the 10 songs [Monday] and it was the first time we heard the whole thing in sequence. So all we have to do is master it and press it and it should be ready to release.
And how does it sound at first listen?
We really like the way it’s sounding. We kind of went for more of a live vibe, more of a retro, natural sound to the band. I think we totally got what we wanted with it.
When will it be out?
We still have to master it and we’re going to press it too. All this is self-financed so it’s kind of determined on when we can get focused on it, but it should be within the next month or so.
With all of you having day jobs, it seems as if the band is a hobby, but you’re working towards hopefully making it more than that one day. What are some of the hardships that go along with balancing everybody’s schedules?
It’s hard to get everyone focused on getting together for practice. Juggling everyone’s individual schedules is definitely hard. We’d like to have more time to focus on the band, but at this point in our lives, it’s not really where we want it to be. But we’re thinking that if we work really hard on promoting ourselves after this album comes out, maybe we can afford more time to actually do what we want with the band and it will be a little more focused.
How many of you are living in Milwaukee at this point? And I’m wondering if the distance makes it difficult to meet up and to book shows.
Well, we actually all were living in Milwaukee and just recently me and another member moved to West Bend. So two are in Milwaukee and two are in West Bend. It’s actually not that hard to get together because we see each other multiple times during the week. I’m in Milwaukee all the time. We have a set schedule and everyone’s down to do it right now. Ever since we started recording, it’s been a lot easier to get people together.
What are your hopes with this record and in general?
In the short term, I’m hoping that we can get this album released on our own and, with that, we could possibly get somebody else to press it in a larger amount than what we’re going to do personally, so that we don’t have to pay for that because the album is in the can already. With that, we could start playing larger shows and hopefully tour.
And then in the long term, if we can keep the commitment going with this, I just want to keep making albums, keep networking with other bands, make better music—just keep it going.
Is there a name for this new album yet?
It’s going to be called Thick As Thieves.
Is there any sort of live element that you guys offer that isn’t heard in your recorded songs?
We’re definitely a lot more spontaneous and we definitely have a lot more fun. We’ve been playing together for so long now that we just go up there and play out set. I think there’s more of an energy to our live set. We play off each other really well and we’re getting way better at it.
See The Sensationalists live tonight (Nov. 10) at Circle-A Café (932 E. Chambers St., circle-a-café.org). The show begins at 8 p.m., with The Sensationalists headlining a bill that also features The Canoes and Elusive Parallelograms. To hear The Sensationalists and to keep up to date on show details and news regarding the forthcoming record, “like” the band on Facebook.
