Nathan Kalish and the Wildfire

This story was featured in the April issue of NOISE! Magazine

In terms of recorded output, Grand Rapids rockers Nathan Kalish and the Wildfire have been pretty quiet. Thus is not the case when it comes to their steady regimen of live shows

“We do a lot of Midwest playing,” said Kalish, taking a break from his drive through Kalamazoo where he was hanging flyers for his April 16 show at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe. “We’ve been playing a lot more music — just a lot of shows in general. We’ve been doing this for a long time. There is definitely a moment about two years ago where we kind of hit our peak (locally). That’s not to say we don’t continually peak, but there had been more downs than ups.”

Playing in the same city every night can get a tad cumbersome, and for a time, Kalish and his band served as one of the poster boys for indie rock in Grand Rapids. But they won’t be gracing Furniture City too much in the coming months as they focus on neighboring states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Kalish said his band is now starting to build a solid following in cities like Madison, Wisc., Columbus, Ohio and Chicago and Rockford, Ill.

However, on May 20, the band will break in the stage at new venue The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids.

“Sometimes playing locally is a lot of work,” Kalish kind of chuckled. “You bring all your stuff there, you play, then you have to pack up all your stuff and bring it home to unload it. When you’re on the road, you play, pack up your stuff and just go sleep on someone’s floor.”

Between a busy performance schedule, Nathan Kalish and the Wildfire are recording an EP at Skull Studios, owned by band member Matt Ten Clay, and also at Kalish’s own studio. While Kalish couldn’t offer many details on the forthcoming work, the one thing that is known is the release will break a pretty long period of silence for the band.

“This is probably the longest I’ve gone without putting anything out,” Kalish said. “It’s probably been about 13 or 14 months since the last time we put something out.”

“It’s probably the best sounding one we’ve done, sonically,” Kalish said. “I don’t know too much about it yet. There are some labels that we’re talking to and stuff like that. Other than that, we’re not sure when we’re releasing it or even if it will be an EP or a full-length album. We’re basically just recording new music right now.”