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• Hard work and natural progression spell success for Princeton

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Princeton playing at Krannert Center during Pygmalion. photo by Paul Habeeb

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With the release of Coconut of Love in September, Princeton has been touring in support of many big name acts including Ra Ra Riot, Vampire Weekend, Art Brut, The Ruby Suns, and on Wednesday, Nov. 11, with OK Go at The Canopy Club. However, with the positive reviews and overall buzz that the band has been receiving, Princeton may soon start taking some bands under their own wing.

The indie-rock quartet consists of twin brothers Jesse Kivel and Matt Kivel switching off on bass and guitar and lead vocals; Ben Usen on keyboards, and David Kitz on drums. The band stems from LA and have been working together off and on since they were around 16, however, the music didn’t really take shape until they were all in college. “The name Princeton has been going on for about 7 years. We would just work on music over break from college and write and record new stuff, but we never released any of it. Junior year we studied abroad in London and played a couple of shows. We liked where it was going and the songs that we were writing, so we decided to start playing when we got out of college, which was about 2 years ago,” Jesse said.

Soon after, the band recorded their first release, a concept EP called Bloomsbury, that was greatly inspired by the Bloomsbury writers, especially Virginia Woolf. The band is even selling a shirt that flaunts Woolf wearing sunglasses, Jesse stating that, “We just thought if she were alive now she would be a Ray-Ban wearing hipster.”

One would think that with the band's growing commercial success that life for the band members may be starting to get a bit surreal, however Jessie said, “You always look around you, and you inevitably see people who are getting more popular or making more money and it’s very hard to focus on what you're doing. It’s definitely not surreal, because we have been working really hard for the past few years and it’s felt a little like a natural progression.”

Princeton visited CU earlier this year in support of Ra Ra Riot at the Pygmalion Music Festival and put on a fantastic show. The band's original style of a mix of world music with 50’s doo-wop is delivered with a feel of intimacy and the band has an altogether great stage presence.