And while Walk Off The Earth, the reggae-infused pop five-piece have been making music together for seven years, they saw their popularity skyrocket almost immediately after the band posted a video of the song, in which all five members cover the 2011 hit by only playing one guitar. Their take does justice to the song’s intoxicating sway, but as Luminati speaks at length about his band’s history and approach, it becomes clear there’s much more to Walk Off The Earth than that cover.
“We had no idea whatsoever,” says Luminati of the video’s ascent into the viral video Hall of Fame. “We knew that we wanted to make cool videos and we had a few thousand views on YouTube with our older videos, which was pretty awesome of course.
“So we knew we were going in that direction,” he continues from his home in Burlington, Ontario, just under an hour West of Toronto. “But I had no idea that we were going to end up doing what we actually did. I actually wasn’t that happy with the finished product when we finished recording. So we definitely had no idea.” For all the surprise Luminati and the band feel towards the initial success of the video, the band is now preparing to play the song live for crowds that have become as inundated with the track as clubbers in Seoul have been with Gangnam Style.
As I press Luminati more about the cover and how it will affect the band moving forward into their first Australian tour, he remains resilient. With the release of their third full-length R.E.V.O (Which contains Somebody I Used To Know), Luminati doesn’t believe they’ve become pigeon-holed by the song. “Not at all,” he forcefully maintains, “Sure, we get asked about it by interviewers all the time, but never once at one of our shows have we had one of our fans shout out, ‘Please play the Gotye song!’ or anything like that. Our fans have a lot of respect for our original material and we don’t have any shame in doing covers, we just like putting our own twists on good songs.”
For Luminati and Walk Off The Earth, they’re simply following in the time-honoured tradition of paying homage to their favourite artists with a well-arranged cover. “It’s something that’s been done by original artists for many years now; Elvis played a ton of covers, Dolly Parton did covers, what we’re doing is nothing new. It’s nothing we’re ashamed of. [Somebody I Used To Know] is always going to be a part of us and we’ll play it at our live shows. I don’t think we’re pigeon-holed by it at all.”
R.E.V.O doesn’t represent a huge departure in terms of approach and sonic language for the band. They’re still employing simplistic, light-hearted rhythms that attempt to give weight to their lazy, summertime state of mind. Yet R.E.V.O is the band’s first album on a major label and will likely lead to even greater exposure for the band. Luminati might not concede that R.E.V.O isn’t a huge jump for the band, but he does believe that in time, changes in the band’s sound could be afoot.
“The more opportunities we have, the more comfortable we feel stretching our legs out and trying new, different things,” he admits. “It’s not too weird for us to do anything really, and I’m glad we’ve set ourselves up like that.”
The unique approach Walk Off The Earth took on their cover of the Gotye classic may then be a sign of things to come. For Gianni Luminati, blending a visual element to the music they make is only part of his larger vision. “I’ve always wanted to make music more visual. It was hard to find people that were down with trying new stuff and taking risks,” he says. “When we first started playing, we tried to employ a level of the visual experience in our early shows, and things have steadily progressed. So we ran with it.”
BY JOSHUA KLOKE
