Wild Sweet Orange
By Caren Kelleher
Photo by Don Van Cleave

"Art is about other people,” be it fans, fellow musicians or communities. Preston Lovinggood, vocalist and songwriter of Wild Sweet Orange, harps on this idea often and dotingly when describing the musical evolution that has taken the band from church pews to punk-rock to Grey’s Anatomy. Though the journey has taken its members through different cities and genres, Wild Sweet Orange remains rooted in its hometown of Birmingham, Ala., a cultural community that has undergone an evolution of its own.

Birmingham’s burgeoning cultural scene and the success of its musicians, like Wild Sweet Orange, has created for a symbiotic relationship between the two, even when one isn’t as kind to the other. “Sometimes in the South it can be hard for the individual,” explains Lovinggood. “It can be hard for someone who thinks differently.” He vocalizes this observation to songs like “Be Careful (What You Want)”, casting a critical eye on the social structures of Southern suburbia. “It’s this conservative, kind of evangelical things where people say they care about you but they really don’t.”

Lovinggood says he is not alone in this response. “I think that’s what bringing on so many bands in Birmingham — not being comfortable in the situations they are in.”

This surge of good music has attracted the interest of national tastemakers, including KEXP’s John Richards, who started playing Wild Sweet Orange’s song “Ten Dead Dogs” in heavy rotation last year. Shortly thereafter the band joined The Whigs and The Broken West on a national tour, heard its song, “Land of No Return,” featured on Grey’s Anatomy, and headed to Austin, TX, to finish its first full-length release for Canvasback/Columbia. The label, whose roster is populated by other young southern bands like The Annuals and Manchester Orchestra, paired Wild Sweet Orange with veteran producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Patty Griffin, Trail of the Dead). Though the untitled debut was completed two years ago with a “very suburban, enclosed-in-a-house kind of feel,” working with McCarthy allowed Wild Sweet Orange to uplift the record while combining old experiences with new visions.

Lovinggood credits such opportunities with the new business model that Wild Sweet Orange and other young bands have followed: seeking out a manager and booking agent before a record deal. These incremental changes have offered Wild Sweet Orange a controlled introduction to the music industry without it threatening its artistic vision.

“It’s something that’s very weird: art and business,” observes Lovinggood. “When they collide, sometimes really scary things can happen. But if you’re not too extreme and rebellious about it I think some really cool things can happen, and that cool thing would be that more people get to hear your music. That’s what art is about; it’s about other people,” not excluding his fellow bandmates. Lovinggood recalls going into a New York meeting with the band, all of them sharing just one tactic.

“As these people are talking let’s just keep looking each other in the eyes. Let them know that we are all together and we’re listening to them and respecting them but we care about each other. Just try to stay close as a band.”
Though Lovinggood vowed never to move away from Birmingham, he admits that touring has made him want to relocate to any of a number of great cities outside of the South. But he quickly notes a key differentiator that keeps Wild Sweet Orange rooted to its hometown.

“In a lot of music scenes people have to put on the face like they’re supporting each other but they’re not. I really feel like everyone is supporting each other from Birmingham,” even when growing interest begets criticism, as Wild Sweet Orange has faced. Lovinggood seems to take it in stride.

“We’re hardly even popular yet. But if you do start touring, sometimes people start looking for the negative things about you. But it doesn’t taint Birmingham for me. It’s something we need. We all love going back home and we love our town. To go back home is a really special thing for us every time.”

www.myspace.com/wildsweetorange.com