Cage the Elephant ready to let loose
When Cage the Elephant plays a good show, the band members are out of their minds — in the best possible way. Thoughtful as they may be on disc, the Kentucky sextet gets a little unhinged during its live shows, which often involve singer Matt Shultz leading singalongs, crowdsurfing and, on the current tour, stripping to a sleek bodysuit.
“You have to let yourself get overwhelmed,” explains guitarist Brad Shultz, the band’s co-leader and Matt’s brother. “You have to forget everything around you as much as you can. You’re feeding off the crowd and having a good time with them, but you also have to live within the song. When I’m onstage thinking about things, those are the worst shows we’ve ever had. But when everything’s going naturally and we go offstage saying, ‘What just happened?’ — those are the really good ones.”
Cage the Elephant hits the Xfinity Center next week, on an alternative all-star bill with Beck co-headlining and Spoon opening. Their association with Beck began last year when they were recording the latest album, “Social Cues.” One of the tracks, “Night Running,” was proving especially tough to record.
“I probably pushed Matt a little too hard on that song,” Shultz says. “That one was like an especially close child to me, and Matt was feeling a little blockage with it — so I pushed him harder, which created more blockage. We came back fresh the next day and the creativity started flowing, so we started thinking about collaborations. We were gigantic Beck fans so I sent him the track on a whim, we honestly didn’t expect he’d get back to us. Within two days he sent back two verses, and said he’d written four more. We were so excited and giddy that we used those and never heard the other four.”
On this tour they’re playing the song together for an encore.
“Social Cues” is otherwise a relatively dark album for this band, with many of the lyrics informed by Matt’s recent divorce.
“The lyrics may carry a certain meaning to Matt, but I think we can all relate to them in a different way. We’ve had our struggles, we’ve lost some friends and family members over the past three years — it’s been one of those little stretches in life that you have to get through. When you write a song, you’re going to subconsciously mold those feelings into something that’s a part of you. There’s lyrically a dark undertone to this record, but there’s also some light at the end of the tunnel.”
Some of the new songs (including the album and concert opener “Broken Boy”) concern the band’s mixed reaction to the fame it’s encountered in recent years.
“Part of that comes from being kids that grew up in Bowling Green, there weren’t a lot of people out of there who made it. But I don’t think Matt believes that people need to be glorified, in the way that people glorify musicians. For myself, I know that it’s exciting to see people get to this position, and they’ll want to know how it feels. But there are always times when I want to have a conversation about anything but music.”