Matt Shultz, vocalist for ramshackle rockers Cage the Elephant, has a reputation for going unhinged in the live setting. The Kentucky native performs as if his life depends on it. Because in his mind, it does.
Shultz, his guitarist brother Brad, and some high school friends (guitarist Lincoln Parish, bassist Daniel Tichenor, and drummer Jared Champion) formed Cage the Elephant in their hometown of Bowling Green, Ky. It’s a typical small community, where life centers around high school sports and selected industry. In Bowling Green’s case, it’s Corvette’s flagship plant and a Fruit of the Loom distribution center.
Now that Shultz has traveled extensively, he appreciates the repose of his old stomping grounds. But he doesn’t regret the direction he took after dropping out of Western Kentucky University.
“There were a lot of times where I felt trapped, like the world I was born into was the world I was going to die in,” Shultz said during a recent phone interview while Cage the Elephant are en route to a gig in Toronto. Adding to his frustration was growing up in a strict Pentecostal home where secular music was forbidden. Finally hearing the likes of Bob Dylan convinced Shultz he didn’t want to spend his life on an assembly line.
Once Cage the Elephant’s lineup solidified, the process took off. They were only a band three months when they entered a studio to record their self-titled debut — completed in just 10 days.
“We kinda just got together, put the songs together and rushed into the studio,” Shultz says. “For what it was and when we did it, I’m really happy with it.”
It’s a youthful pastiche of Cage the Elephant’s collective influences: blues, punk, and a hint of hip-hop. It all serves as a launching pad for Shultz’s poison-penned diatribes against societal hypocrisy and his experience with human malefaction. Lead single “No Rest for the Wicked,” for example, details his brushes with a drug-dealing co-worker and a prostitute. For Shultz, though, music has never exactly served as therapy for him.
“I’ve just done it because it felt like something I had to do,” he said. “Sometimes you have a guitar and start playing and singing words, you don’t even know what the song is until it starts taking shape.”
Cage the Elephant’s travels, which have included South-by-Southwest and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, have introduced Shultz to many people who share his frustrations.
“Struggle on any level is the same as far as the point of origin, for the most part,” he said. “Whether it’s because you’re poor or rich, troubles at home or at school, I think they’re all derived from the same place.”
The band continues to promote its debut with no signs of slowing down, but they’ve already finished the follow-up. Shultz says it’s quite different from the first, but fans will still recognize them.
“As a band you can’t help but sow your personality into your music,” he said. “It still sounds like us, it’s just your musical tastes change over time and you grow as people. Hopefully your records change as well.”
That includes his overall goals within the rock & roll dream.
“A lot people perceive it to be fame and fortune, drugs and alcohol, girls,” Shultz said. “There’s nothing real in that. That is the most empty, bottomless way to live. I’d rather write about things that are real and live a real life.”
———
Online:
www.cagetheelephant.com
Just the facts
WHO: Cage the Elephant, Silversun Pickups, An Horse
WHEN: 8 p.m. Oct. 27
WHERE: The Vogue, 6259 N. College Ave., Indianapolis
