Catching up with: Walk the Moon

It seems like every few years a talented band from Cincinnati breaks out into the mainstream and captures the hearts of fans both locally and nationally. Heartless Bastards and Foxy Shazam have accomplished it in recent years, and soon four-piece Walk the Moon will take their place in the city’s music pantheon.

Nicholas Petricca started the band three years ago, and at first it was just a revolving door of musicians until the band’s lineup solidified a year ago when Madeira native and CCM grad Eli Maiman joined the group as a guitarist.

“It’s been a rolling process in terms of members but we all feel good about each other now and we’re all really sure this is the group that we want to commit ourselves to,” Maiman said from the road during a L.A. tour stop.

In 2010, the group dropped their poppy first record, the self-released i want! i want! to critical acclaim. The success of the record led to them signing with major label RCA Records, and then it pretty much snowballed from there.

Last year, Esquire named “Anna Sun” it’s official song of summer.

They’ll be playing for Carson Daly and Jimmy Fallon in the coming weeks. And they’ve landed a spot on MTV’s watchlist for 2012. (Go vote for them in the mtvU Woodie Awards.) They're on the schedule for the Sasquatch music festival in Washington state over Memorial Day weekend and the Governor's Ball festival in New York City in June.

This weekend, the band plays with Irvine, Calif., rockers Young the Giant in a sold-out show at the Madison Theater.

“The past year has been really, really wild,” said Maiman. “An interesting thing being in a band, you definitely crawl for a long time and play a lot of smaller rooms and opening gigs and sometime early last year, things just started moving really, really fast and we got to do a lot of things that are kind of on our musician bucket list.”

Some of those things included playing slots at Lollapalooza and SXSW, but despite their seemingly overnight success, Maiman and the guys are keeping things in perspective.

“There’s a lot to get done and we got to keep our game faces on and really be focused, but in those moments where we have a moment to step back and reflect on what’s going on, every time it’s like, wow, it’s so insane.”

The next few months will probably get even crazier when their still untitled sophomore record comes out in May. They recorded it with their dream producer, Ben Allen, last summer in Atlanta, and their newly released Anna Sun EP features three songs that’ll also appear on the record.

With all of their traveling, Maiman’s looking forward to coming back home.

“It’s always nice to be able to just come home and be with our families after being out on the road for months and months. … We love representing Cincinnati. We’re extremely proud to have been from Cincinnati and we’re going to keep repping it the best that we can and know that the city will keep supporting us as they have in such an amazing way for the past year.”

With so few bands making it to the big time, Walk the Moon realize how fortunate they are to have what could be fleeting opportunities.

“There’s millions of bands and millions of CDs that come out every single year, and the music business is interesting because you can be extremely talented and have great songs and still toil in obscurity for your entire life just because you have to have a certain amount of luck,” said Maiman. “You have to work hard and be extremely lucky. We don’t take what’s happening for granted ever. We’re aware of how special it is and we’re really treasuring the opportunities that we’re being given.”

During the interview, Maiman mentions Grammy-winner Bon Iver walked by him on the street. “He looks tall,” Maiman interjected. When asked if he’d like to win a couple of Grammys , Maiman agreed it would be nice, but it’s really not as important to him as keeping his face-painted fans content.

“What I want to do is I want to keep playing music live and connecting with people in that concert setting, and as long as people are coming, people are smiling and enjoying themselves, I’m going to be a happy guy.”