Infinite Shuffle

Before I sat down to write this post, I was really looking forward to sharing my thoughts on this great new band I’d discovered, Bad Things. They released their self-titled debut last month, and it’s filled with a lot of great, catchy indie rock songs.

Unfortunately, when I began to do some research on the group, I quickly discovered some unsettling news.

If you’ve watched even the slightest bit of Olympics coverage or any of the stuff leading up to the Games, you’ve likely been reminded of the existence of Shaun White. He’s been everywhere for the last few months. So much so that I’d begun to get burnt out on the Flying Tomato and definitely experienced some Schadenfreude when he failed to win a medal earlier this week.

Alas, even though his Games are officially over, I’m still being inundated by all things White. This time, with his music. One of the storylines leading up to the Olympics was the fact that he’d begun to branch out from sports and was in a new band, one that would be performing in Sochi.

I never paid attention to any of that. Whenever his music career was mentioned, I immediately tuned out. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention, since the name of his band is Bad Things.

Yep, the band that I’ve been listening to for the past few weeks and really getting into just happens to be Shaun White’s band.

I guess it’s a good thing I fell in love with the group before I knew anything about White’s involvement. As is the case with a lot of famous people who try their hand at another profession, it would have been hard for me to take the group seriously.

While trying to reconcile my feeling over the group, I read this article, and it helped ease the process.

And it doesn’t hurt that the music is really good. With Davis DeLuke on lead vocals and former Augustana member Jared Palomar on bass, Bad Things have some heavy hitters up front. Rounding out the Los Angeles-based band are some of White’s friends from childhood — guitarist Anthony Sanudo and drummer-vocalist Lena Zawaideh.

There’s no obvious band to compare Bad Things to, as they’re something of a conglomeration of a lot of solid indie bands.

And despite my bittersweet feelings on the band’s personnel, I can’t deny the fact that this is a great debut disc. With little to no filler on this album, it’s officially the first nominee for my Best of 2014 list.