by Lauren Rosier
Photos by Mason Poole
Civil Twilight is one of those up-and-coming rock bands that you want to hear more and more about. The South African four-piece band is comprised of brothers Andrew and Steven McKellar, Richard Wouters, and Kevin Dailey.
They have an incredible story — human beings that call South Africa home, but immigrated to Los Angeles, then to Nashville all in the name of music. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak directly with drummer Richard Wouters about the band’s journey, the latest record, and how they thought this thing was going to turn out.
They’re unlike any other rock band you’ve heard before; they have a unique sound which allows them to play any type of song, and it sounds amazing. With three studio albums released, they’ve had to reinvent themselves and change things up a bit with each record that drops.
“Our tastes change a little and we kind of get into different things and that comes out in the music. We never really intentionally tried to reinvent ourselves. The latest record has a lot of different sounds, but still sounds like us. It’s natural for artists to progress and hard to stay in the same place,” Wouters explains.
Civil Twilight just released their third record, Story of an Immigrant, in July, and it has received amazing reviews and reaction from the fans so far. Wouters says this record took a little bit longer to write, but the recording process went pretty quickly, about a month or so. If you listen closely, you can hear the influences of the band’s South African roots.
“This one we decided to channel the stuff we grew up listening to, what was happening to us in South Africa, and South African jazz. The music in South Africa is atmospherically different. Unique sound. We pulled from some of those sources — more natural, not an intention thing,” he describes.
The greatest inspiration throughout the writing/recording process, Wouters says, was to have the ability to “simplify the music down to kind of the key ingredient and not really worried about what kind of box it was going to fit into.”
Civil Twilight has been around for nearly a decade now and they’ve been through the writing and recording process of three albums, immigrating to the United States, extensive touring, and an endless list of amazing experiences, opportunities, and situations. It’s definitely hasn’t turned out the way they thought it was going to be.
“We have ideals and ideas and they usually work out differently. When you actually step back and look at it, it’s been an amazing journey. It’s not what we thought it was going to be, but in terms of achievement, ‘I’m going to do that, i’m going to do this’, I think we’re starting to realize you find joy in the whole process. In my experience, the journey makes you richer. There’s ups and downs — the challenge is trying to be thankful and enjoy the good things. we’ve got a lot to be thankful for,” Wouters states gratefully.
Civil Twilight will be at Union Transfer tomorrow night with Knox Hamilton.
