INTERVIEW: Cherub @ The Wilma

Natalie Schmidt is DJ Short, you can check out her morning show Cups on Tuesdays from 9AM-7AM and listen to interviews before they hit the website.

graphic by: Delaney Cummins

Through a maze of neon arrows and beneath the stage of the Wilma, I found myself in a small room next to Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber of Cherub.

When asked about life on the road, James spoke on the importance of splitting up the monotony. “We’ve always made a point to just.. Break down that barrier and go out and ya know, have a drink and a laugh with people after the show and have a good time and we’ve ended up making some of our best friends in the whole world out of random circumstances on the road.”

“Neither Jordan or I are people that walk into a party like ‘HEY, someone give me the aux cord, I’m gonna put on the f***ing jams, set the vibe… our own song! We never want to be overbearing or force ourselves upon people but we are both people who like to outwardly share and express ourselves, it is kinda our safe space to do that, ya know?” Jason concluded after a bit of thought.

“Once you buy a ticket and come to the venue you have given us your consent to listen to our music.” Jordan said as he slouched further into his armchair. “Consent is sexy.”

After “Doses and Mimosas” hit #23 on the Alternative Rock Charts, and got over 20 million views on Youtube, the duo has been touring non-stop. Currently, they are on their Free Form tour promoting their new songs “Body Language”, “Dancing Shoes”, and “Want That.”

“It is cool [to] perform your songs live, that you’ve been working on, and see an immediate reaction from people, ya know? Cause before you play them live, it is just you and a few other people making the music, it is very isolated. To take it from that setting to all these random people coming, it is a pretty cool thing to see reactions…” Jordan said.

Unlike many touring artists, Cherub doesn’t save their most popular hits for late in their set, as Jason explains.

“We’ve talked about it for years as a social experiment, what would happen if we played it first, would they just leave? But is actually is awesome cause it just get that out of the way so there is not this anticipation the whole show. That way we can sing a whole bunch of other songs and everyone will just vibe out. It’s just really cool.”

Jordan wishes his fans knew one thing: “Don’t feel like you are annoying us if you come up to give us a hug, or take a picture, we love that sh*t.” He said. “When they come up and share a story or some sort of like, any sort of appreciation or love, we appreciate that immensely. It’s not annoying... They are always like “we’re gonna be that fan” and we are always like, “dude it’s cool”.”

“We live in like a small bubble that is our tour bus and our tour venues, venues that we stop at and stuff. So when we step outside that bubble we realize how a large portion of the rest of the ‘working class’, or whatever you wanna call them, lives, we kinda, we are kind of ridiculous to a certain degree, but... We just wanna hang out with nice people.” Jordan said calmly.

In the end, Jason and Jordan are just two friends on the road, soaking up what life has to offer… No matter how the world might see them.

“The rest of the world would probably consider us all deviants. But that’s okay. Because we are sweet, goodhearted deviants.” Jason said putting his hand to his chest. “Our goal has always been to leave people with good feelings.”