Back in 2003, Locksley started out (like almost all good things in this world) in Wisconsin, but their music comes from a much more distant place. To find the origins of their peppy brand of pop-punk, you have to travel across the ocean and back in time to the age of the British Invasion. Infused with the same classic, quirky hooks that propelled The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who to immortality, Locksley tap into the primordial brilliance that gave birth to rock ‘n roll. But it hardly ends there. Equal opportunity adapters, Locksley also mine the brash, lip-biting fire that landed millions of modern babies in Ramones onesies. Is that too abstract? What we mean is that Locksley kick that boyish Beatles charm into angry overdrive with a wallop of punk adrenaline, straight outta 1977.
The boys in the band themselves are more outta like … 1985. Ranging in age from 18 to 25, Jesse Laz, Kai Kennedy, Jordan Laz and Sam Bair grew up together in (you can never mention it enough times) Madison, Wisconsin, before moving to Brooklyn together. According to our bro Wikipedia, it wasn’t the easiest of trips, but you can do that research yourself. Around here the music takes precedence.
Starting off without significant label attention, Locksley took their futures into their own hands and released an album and an EP on their own. Their first stand-out single, “Don’t Make Me Wait,” was quickly snapped up by Starz, Payless Shoe Source (both of whom licensed the song for ads) and basically everybody else who heard it. Sales of 50,000 and five years of touring with everyone from Hanson to The Hives later, Locksley are still unsigned, but that won’t stop them from re-releasing Don’t Make Me Wait as a full-length album September 9.
And it certainly won’t stop them from blowing your minds with original videos as our Artist Of The Week that you’ll be seeing all over MTV for a while. And you can see them below!
There’s a few of those live performances we were talking about earlier, but there’s stuff there that’s even more important. More important than music, you ask? Yeah. The band is excited to make a difference in this, an election year, and that’s why they’re speaking out on MTV and joining in the Choose Or Lose discussion.
We’ve also got tons of exclusive photos from their shoot in Washington, D.C.! Look!
