West 22nd is Just Getting Started

The band West 22nd, composed of Jet Beck, Logan Madsen, Jeremy Ancheta, Douglas Blatt and Gabe Acevedo, are making history at music festival Austin City Limits by being the first all student band to be in the lineup. 

After garnering the attention of the city’s student population, the band is working on expanding their catalog while balancing their studies and making a name for themselves in unique ways in the city they call home. Pleaser sat down with the band on the Sunday of the first weekend at ACL to talk to them about their journey. 

Pleaser: Y’all used to play at frat parties, you won battle of the bands at [The University of Texas at Austin] now you’re playing at ACL, what has this experience been like? It feels kind of like a whirlwind. 

Logan Madsen: It’s been amazing. You mentioned the frat parties and stuff like that, private events, eventually we went to bars. UT has been so supportive of us and gave us the chance to do Battle of the Bands. It’s just been so great. Austin and UT I feel like have very much taken us in, and we’ve just grown so much together as musicians, as people, in every sense of ourselves. So, we’ve very excited, it’s such an honor to play here. 

P: In May, y’all announced that you had a new bassist so what was —

Jet Beck: Oh that’s me!

P: That is you! What was the process like for finding somebody who would gel with the group? Cause y’all kind of already had an established thing going on.

LM: Well, the first — the second show we ever had [Jet] came up to me after and was like “hey I play guitar, I’m a multi-instrumentalist guy. If you ever need a fill-in let me know.” And we’d just kind of keep up with each other and we’d see each other around campus. And then our other bassist told us he was going to be a backcountry tour guide in Yellowstone, which is awesome.

P: If you’re going to quit a band —

LM: Exactly, you gotta do something cooler! But the first thing we thought of was Jet, and it couldn’t have worked better cause we already liked Jet as a person. And although we hadn’t hung out with him a lot, he filled in for Jeremy [Ancheta], when Jeremy went to a wedding on guitar. And then we got to roadtrip to Denver and all the way back with him, and it was a great time and we haven’t looked back. 

P: Jet, what has it been like stepping into these shoes?

JB: It’s been a wild experience to be honest. When I filled in for Jeremy originally on lead guitar, it was like “hey man Jeremy’s out, do you think you’d be able to learn all of our songs in a week and play at a show?” I’m like “yeah, let’s do it! I don’t know if I can, but I’ll figure it out.” And then for South by [Southwest] last year, [Logan] texts me out of the blue. He’s like “hey” —

LM: That was this year.

JB: Oh yeah! Last school year, but this calendar year. He’s like “hey how would you think about playing at South by Southwest as an official artist?” And I was like “oh my god that sounds incredible, who would I be playing with?” [Laughs] He’s like [pause] “me.” He’s like “yeah all you have to do is learn all of our songs on bass in a week.” 

[Everyone laughs] 

JB: Like oh, I’ve done this before, this sounds familiar. So I just had to go and — I worked with all of them and everyone’s been helpful. Gabe [Acevedo] was my sensei for a while on guitar —

Jeremy Ancheta: Was it easier to learn lead [guitar] stuff or bass? 

JB: I would honestly say, that’s actually interesting, that's a difficult question.

JA: I’m like the interviewer now [laughs]. 

JB: I was gonna say guitar because I had actually learned some of the songs that were out at the time just in case.

[Everyone laughs]

JB: I was like “one day they’re gonna ask me and I’ll play ‘Sunburns’ and they’re gonna be blown away.” But then by the time I had to learn them on bass, I was so much more familiar with the songs, but I was more familiar with the guitar parts than the bass parts for sure. So probably about even, honestly. 

LM: Inconclusive [laughs]. 

JB: No answer [laughs].

P: Y’all went semi viral for performing on top of the JuiceLand that’s on Barton Springs [Road], walk me through that process a little bit, what happened there?

Gabe Acevedo: We just like JuiceLand, I don’t know.

[Everyone laughs]

GA: We like Austin, we like smoothies. People were honestly in the comments mostly engaging about Old Austin versus New Austin and how we’re all from California, which we’re not, but one of us is. 

LM: This guy is [talking about Jeremy Ancheta].

GA: But honestly, a lot of people were just arguing about Austin, which is fine with us, people are watching the video, hearing the song. I think Austin just has such a spotlight on it right now, it really shows how many people have eyes on the city, are seeing what’s coming out of here. We want them to see West 22nd. 

LM: Blues on the Green was happening, and we were trying to figure out if we could play it or not. And they were like “sorry guys we’ve already got the lineup booked.” And we were like “d*mn, maybe we should do something.” It was like Olivia [Knox] our manager who was like, “let’s play on top of JuiceLand” or “let’s play at JuiceLand.” And we got there and Olivia talked to the owner, [talking to Olivia] what’s his name again?

Olivia Knox: Matt.

JB: Everyone we know is named Matt.

LM: And we were setting up everything and we asked one of the employees if we could put drums on the roof and they were like “uh, I guess.” And eventually I got on the roof. It was great cause people were passing by, taking videos and it was fun. It was a DIY soundboard and everything. Once Matt got there he wasn’t too thrilled we were on his roof, but we figured it out at the end, but yeah that’s kind of how we got on there.

P: Being a student band, what has the reception from UT students been like?

LM: I feel like there’s definitely a lot of people who have heard of us just kind of randomly, through the grapevine. I feel like everybody’s been pretty nice about it. We get recognized sometimes and people come up and say they like the music and stuff, so it’s been great.

P: Do y’all have to go to class on Monday?

JB: Oh that’s tomorrow! 

GA: We’re supposed to, we’ll see if we end up —

JA: I have an 11 a.m. tomorrow morning

JB: So do I

P: In your set, you did an abbreviated version of “Dog Days Are Over,” how did y’all choose that song?

GA: Well I always liked Florence + the Machine growing up. We always try to look for covers that everyone knows but aren’t common, that everyone’s playing right now. And that’s a song that I think everyone knows from their childhood and is really nostalgic about. It’s really sweet. And I just noticed that the chords are really similar to [our song] “Road Trip” so we thought it would be a great song to use for ACL and once we tried it we were like not only are we going to use it but we have to use that as the closer. I think it went great. 

P: The public reception was good?

LM: It’s very hard to sing. [Florence Welch] is one of the best female singers of all time so I was trying my best to hold my own up there.

P: Going forward into the future, what musicians are y’all looking at for inspiration? I heard y’all were releasing an album or something?

LM: Yeah we’re recording a project —

JB: Who told you that?

LM: In the winter —

P: A little birdie

LM: Planning on coming out in the spring sometime, undecided.

GA: Yeah we have a lot of influences, there’s some folk stuff going on in the album but also our typical indie rock vibes, but some fun drum beats and whatnot. There’s a lot of Backseat Lovers always

LM: Cage The Elephant

GA: Cage The Elephant, Vampire Weekend, Twin Peaks

LM: Kendrick Lamar I mean, great lyricist

JB: We got into rapping a little bit on this album so 

LM: You’re gonna wanna hear this.

P: Really?

JB: No, there will be no rapping.

LM: But it has every genre.

JB: There’s some Dominic Fike in there, I mean it’s all over the place.

LM: We all came from relatively different backgrounds of music, but we all like the same music you know? So there’s a lot of tastes and stuff like that

P: What did the creative process look like for your album?

LM: We’re still in it! We just recorded a song that initially we thought was going to be a single, but it ended up being too good so we’re probably going to put it on the album. But we’re recording the rest in the winter with Matt Pence and hopefully releasing it in the spring. We’ve been very busy with ACL and so now we’re going to hit the ground running, writing and figuring it all out and putting all the promotion and everything together. So we’re really excited.