With a brand-spanking new record out this week, Ohio-bred indie rock band Walk the Moon are certainly rattling this ghost town.
The band can be well satisfied with their numbers, coming off a successful performance on the David Letterman show, a shout-out in Esquire and having been named both MTV’s PUSH artist of the week, as well as Vevo’s next Lift artist. In the days following the release of their self-titled album, they’ve enjoyed a huge spike in declared fans across social media sites, their listening base on Rdio increased by more than 2,300 percent, and close to 20,000 people are talking about them on Facebook this week.
Comparing their numbers to those of similar artists such as Young the Giant, Reptar and Dale Earnhart Jr. Jr. at the time they pushed out their respective albums, shows that Walk the Moon have really capitalized on this release. Which is good for them, because they were really excited about it, as they let their fans know in this adorable little snippet published on their Facebook page.
These four boys are not afraid to have fun. Lauded for their happy-go-lucky music video for Anna Sun (single of the week on iTunes in May), the band grabbed a camera, taped themselves while on tour, and put together a string of official unofficial music videos for the album that they’ve called 7in7. This genuine and stripped-down approach to their fans seems to be working - their videos on Vevo have been viewed more than 116,000 times this week, up 105 percent from the previous, and bringing their total closer to 2 million.
You can’t help but enjoy this album. A solid drum and bass line makes this indie rock you could and should dance to - with a smile and perhaps some paint on your face.
Walk the Moon are scheduled to rock Randall’s Island at the Governor’s Ball Music Festival this weekend, will have a brief stop home in Cincinnati, then hit Milwaukee before it’s off to Europe for their summer tour. If you have the good fortune of catching them live, be prepared to have some serious fun.
Liv Buli is the resident data journalist for music analytics company Next Big Sound. Buli is a graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and her work has appeared in Newsweek Daily Beast, The New York Times Local East Village, Westchester Magazine and more.
