Features

Summer Stars: GIVERS

Our Summer Stars series features a variety of groups making the rounds on the festival circuit. Today we look at GIVERS. For more of our Summer Star pieces, click here .

Growing up in Lafayette, La., GIVERS singer/guitarist Taylor Guarisco didn’t scour buzzy music blogs or hip clubs to find out about alternative music. Instead, he looked to his city’s own Festival International de Louisiane.

“When we started this band, I didn’t have a perception of what ‘indie’ music was,” Guarisco admits. “We were kids making this West African music because once a year, this huge international music festival comes through Lafayette and we were inspired by all these amazing artists.”

Honing in on an indie sound that mixes those West African grooves with jittery not-quite Vampire Weekend pop and some local Cajun, funk and zydeco flavors, GIVERS started to gig around Lafayette. At first, Guarisco viewed the band as a fun distraction from his main gig playing in the Grammy winning Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience, but all that quickly changed just six shows in.

“We got offered an opening spot for Dirty Projectors in Baton Rouge, La. [in 2009],” Guarisco recalls. “At the time, they were my favorite band, and we quit our other bands to do that one show. We were all looking for something where we had more stock in creatively.”

Things really started to heat up after GIVERS scored a spot on tour with Dirty Projectors the next fall and released their debut album In Light on Glassnote in 2011. And since making a splash on the festival scene this past year, GIVERS will swing back through the circuit to perform at festivals ranging from Coachella to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Mountain Jam. They also hope to start work on another set of songs.

“We are playing one new song right now,” Guarisco says. “When we get off the road for more than two weeks, we hope to work on some ideas and let them incubate.”

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Favorite summertime food: Watermelons and boxes of corndogs

Best album for a warm summer night: Dr. Dog, Be the Void

In the beach versus forest debate, I choose: The beach because there aren’t many beaches to go to in Louisiana, though my entire family would always hang out in Grand Isle. It is a very small town in very deep, down, south Louisiana that’s kind of a beach but more of a fishing town.