Givers

In times of great tragedy, sometimes the only thing you can do is try to see the positives that came from it, without ignoring how others are affected by it of course. Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy the likes which we rarely seen in the United States and while it’s the smallest of small comforts, without it we wouldn’t have one of the most promising, fascinating and all-around exciting indie groups in the country.

However, without the hurricane forcing the band members together they would have gone on to create some great music anyhow. New Orleans is a hub of music coming in all shapes and sizes, and music of all shapes and sizes is what Givers do best. It’s even in the bands pedigree, the members knew each other from their joint hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, where various members played in Zydeco bands, sang with gospel choirs and frequented the local Cajun music and jazz scenes.

However, lead singer Tiffany Lamson moved out of Lafayette to attend college in New Orleans, and both she and her roommate and future co-lead singer Taylor Guarisco (a fellow Lafayette native) were rooming together when the storm hit. With nothing else to do and nowhere to stay, they returned home and began writing and performing music together. However, it wasn’t until 2008 that the band truly came together, and it began with a local club, and a local band dropping out at the last minute.

The promotor called Lamson and Guarisco to fill in, so the duo recruited Kirby Campbell, Will Henderson and Josh LeBlanc to make up a band and fill the vacant slot. The vacant, two hour slot that the newly formed quintet improvised the whole way through. They were so good that they were immediately invited back and soon had a regular slot playing improvised sets. It was these sets that a lot of the bands early songs were formed from, and they soon had an E.P’s worth of material.

By 2009 the band had been christened Givers and had wrangled a slot opening for one of Guarisco’s favourite bands, the Dirty Projectors, but it was 2010 that made the band. They recorded their debut album in January, toured with Ra Ra Riot over the summer and played a set at the Austin City Limits music festival that Glassnote Records founder Daniel Glass ran a mile to catch from his train to the venue. Needless to say, the band signed to Glassnote in 2011, and on June 7th of the same year, their debut record was released. Since then the band has gone from strength to strength, their songs appearing in everything from football video game FIFA 12 to the TV series Glee. They seem set for great things in the very near future, and they come highly recommended.