San Antonio based band Wild Party formed in 2009 and remain one of the most underrated bands in the indie-pop/rock scene.
The year is 2014, and indie-pop is just beginning to blossom onto the radar of many young listeners who just created their first free Spotify accounts. Fresh from the high of discovering sounds like Imagine Dragon’s first album Night Visions, up and coming bands are finding wide new audiences who are hungry to hear more of what indie-pop has to offer as a newly popular genre. Artists like Walk The Moon, Bad Suns, The 1975, and Bleachers are gaining traction, and people are beginning to discover new underground artists like Hippo Campus, who would just be getting ready to release their first EP Bashful Creatures. Spotify is starting to curate its algorithm to successfully match listeners with new music and artists that compliment the music they already love, therefore changing the discovery landscape as we knew it to be faster and more efficient than ever. By fate or luck, this algorithm picks up and distributes Phantom Pop, a delightfully up-beat collection of electro indie-pop hits from unsuspecting new band Wild Party.
Phantom Pop, a full 12 track length album, is Wild Party’s first ever release, and packed a powerful punch that got the direct attention of listeners all over. The songs immediately caught ears, sending Wild Party directly into the heart of the developing genre. Shortly after the splash of Phantom Pop‘s release, Wild Party began gaining traction across the genre and were picked up to open for bigger tours, including Andrew Mcmahon and The Wilderness, The Grizwolds, Fits and The Tantrums, and Catfish and The Bottlemen. The tours gave Wild Party the perfect opportunity as a relatively new band to tour their debut album across the US to audiences who may like or already knew of their new release. Opening for these artists, as well as sprinkling their own small headlining tours in between, resulted in the further success of Phantom Pop, which seemed like the very exciting beginning of Wild Party’s journey. Fans were excited to see a headlining tour announced, and it seemed like things were just getting started when suddenly things came to a halt. Social media accounts slowly stopped posting, information about tours and new music stopped coming out, and the excitement started to fade out. Eventually, the band’s twitter account explained that the band’s frontman Lincoln Kreifels was about to start a new journey of being a new father, and that Wild Party would be put on hold for the foreseeable future. After that, went quiet for the up and coming new band, aside from a few small tweets here and there.
Now, almost 10 years after the release of their debut album, Wild Party has returned with new EP titled Get Up. The EP expresses the maturation of the band’s sound by exploring the electro-pop elements of their previous record while staying true to their notably infectious hooks and high-energy melodies and rhythms. Get Up features 6 tracks, and while some of the tracks are from 2022, the new release came with the announcement of a new tour, their first one in almost a decade. Stopping in 10 cities across the country, Wild Party made their touring return this summer to promote their EP and to announce the incoming release of their second album later this year. Wild Party fans celebrated the return of the band as a nostalgic excitement, with many fans seeing them live for the very first time this summer.
Wild Party, originally from San Antonio, ended their tour in Texas by stopping in Austin before ending in their hometown. At their Austin date, the band gave a bit of insight into their hiatus, and expressed their gratitude to fans for supporting them through the 6.5 year long hiatus. The show felt like looking into a time capsule; a room full of friends and fans singing along to their favorite tracks from an album released in 2014 with as much excitement as if the songs were released last month. The audience included friends of Wild Party who had been supporting the band since they were playing local gigs in San Antonio, before Phantom Pop was released. The tour gave Wild Party the chance to return to the stage and beckon the indie-pop fans of the 2010’s with a rallying cry – Wild Party is back and better than ever.
The band has since returned to social media, and has even given a vulnerable look into everything that happened in the 7 year gap between 2015 and 2022. Details of the new album have yet to be revealed, but the promise of its eventual release has been maintained by the band’s social media accounts. You can listen to Wild Party’s newest release Get Up on Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube, and you can follow Wild Party online on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
I am a UX Designer and creator of many things. I grew up going to shows in Austin, then moved to Denton to study at UNT. I play in a band and some projects in my college town (mostly bass), I try to write my own music, make art, and create anything that sparks interest. I love disco music, 70's style and dancing!
