The four members of White Eskimo - singer Will Sweeny, guitarist Ryan Smith, bassist Marcus and drummer Alex Lewis - all grew up certain that they were destined to be in a band and spent years searching for the right bandmates. Two years ago, toward the end of their teen years, they found each other. Their sound is not only a sum of their shared influences - Foo Fighters, Green Day, Blink-182 - but also of their contrasting tastes in music, including heavy metal, grunge, hip-hop and Britpop. Hence shape-shifting time signatures, massed backing vocals, riotous riffs and stuttering, staccato beats find their way into songs that hinge on huge, hook-y choruses.
White Eskimo's debut EP, 100x, contains four tracks that capture their personalities perfectly. Lyrically, the songs are about meeting girls and making mistakes (topics not necessarily unrelated). Melodies you'll hear once and hum for days are White Eskimo's calling card. These earworms are not confined to choruses, but drive along every song on the EP and soar through the heart-tugging vocals. In the past two years the quartet has written a raft of new songs, fourteen of which have already been recorded, that are smarter, sharper and more instantly infectious than even they could have imagined when they initially met.
