Wild Nothing Mastermind Mulls Move to New York

Now that Jack Tatum, the man behind Wild Nothing, has graduated from Virginia Tech, there's nothing keeping the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in the South. Later this summer, when he and his band return from their inaugural UK tour, he'll likely be in the market for a Brooklyn apartment.

"I haven't completely decided yet, just because this summer has been kind of crazy," Tatum tells Spinner. "I'm not renewing any lease here in Virginia, because we're going to Europe and all that stuff. I've thought of moving to New York. That seems to be the plan at the moment, but I'm playing it by ear at the moment."

Tatum has lived his whole life in Virginia, and while he's certainly transcended his rural roots and made a name for himself, garnering high praise for his recently released debut album, 'Gemini,' he's in no way representative of some bustling, undiscovered local scene.

"There really aren't a lot of places to play, and not a lot of people making music," he says of Blacksburg, home of the Virginia Tech campus. "And really what it was was house shows around here. That was basically what we started as and really all it's ever been here is making music that we like and our friends enjoy. We play house parties and stuff. It never really went beyond that."

Despite the success of 'Gemini,' a woozy, jangling collection that has earned Wild Nothing comparisons to the Cure and the Smiths, the move to New York City would plop this onetime big fish into a vast ocean of similar-sounding artists. In a town where seemingly everyone has their own laptop indie-pop project, there's a danger of getting lost in the shuffle.

"There's that fear there," Tatum says. "There's a certain charm to being a band from Virginia, because there haven't been a lot of bands from Virginia, so it's kind of something new and interesting."

"At the same time, I've lived here for 22 years, and I'm ready to do something different, even though I'm a little scared of falling into that sort of mass of New York bands," he adds. "It's also going to be good in terms of opportunities and making connections and stuff. From a creative standpoint, it will be interesting and I'm excited to see how it changes things."