On the road with Whitney, your new favourite band

This Chigaco septet aren’t afraid to mix Chicago-style jazz and Prince-style pop with a hint of Dolly Parton. Nyla Davison joins them on their European tour and finds a captive audience for their infectious live performances

Lead vocalist and drummer Julien Ehrlich (right) gets ready for a gig on Whitney’s European tour (Rüdiger Sprang)

It’s 2.30am in East Berlin and I’m in a kid’s play park holding hands with Whitney members Julien Ehrlich, William Miller and Josiah Marshall as we attempt a synchronised jumping session on a quad of trampolines after a sell-out show and a lot of beer. We’re surprisingly successful for a few minutes before someone arrives with a basketball and we swap mats for hoops and spend the next hour playing HORSE.

Casually putting everyone else to shame; drummer and lead vocalist Ehrlich tells me: “There was a time in school when I just did not stop growing. I started out kinda self-conscious about being this weirdly tall, skinny guy for a while then people would always ask me to play basketball and I got really good. I was going to go to college to play ‘ball but I wanted to hang out with my friends and play music.”

Ehrlich and bassist Marshall attended the same Portland, Oregon high school where their friendship grew on the court. In fact, the whole band are childhood friends who love each other, and music as much as they love having fun – it's this feel-good philosophy and rich history that make Whitney the emotionally nuanced and uplifting septet they are today.

The band is Max Kakacek and Tracy Chouteau on guitar, William Miller on trumpet, Josiah Marshall on bass, Malcolm Brown on keys, and Charles Glanders on sound. Each member a talented musician in their own right and soundman Glanders has been there since the band’s inception and is crucial in delivering Whitney’s infectious performances. They live in Chicago, a city with a diverse musical history that makes it a mystery why a band like Whitney haven’t come around sooner. Their debut LP, Light Upon the Lake is a medley of Chicago-style jazz, Dolly Parton country, and Prince-style pop that they’ve spent the last two weeks spreading across European borders.

Hitting the road

The tour kicks off in London with a sold-out show at Oslo, followed by an acoustic Ace Hotel performance later on the same night, which consists of Kakaceck and Ehrlich requesting shots from the crowd – a wish granted multiple times by gleeful attendees. I thank Glanders and Kakaceck for the show and chat to them about the rest of the tour and how they have a Mancunian excursion before returning to London. It turns out to be a humbling experience according to trumpeter Miller: “It was amazing. It was the first time the entire crowd sang along to all the lyrics.”

Back in London the next day they’re at Brick Lane’s Rough Trade store. Their set includes the instrumental wonder “Red Moon”, named as it was written on the night of the Blood Moon last year (not, as some think, because of their girlfriends’ time of the month). Miller carries the entire song with his Sy Oliver-esque trumpet; walking the line between upbeat and sorrowful. Their timing and synchronicity is impeccable, making it a flawless performance that ends in roaring applause from a crowd that spent the last minute and 44 seconds in awe. I'm so blown away by the show I decide that I have to see them play again. So ask if I can tag along to Europe – short of companions and long on guest list spots, they're more than happy for me to.

They ride the high from their UK shows all the way to two sold out gigs in Brussels and Paris where they’re celebrated with equal admiration. Then a 10-hour drive finds them in Hamburg on a Sunday night and the crowd and band are both tired. Whitney still give a solid performance (bar a minor hi-hat hiccup midway through “No Woman”) but the crowd are quiet, which makes for a few awkward moments; Ehrlich laughs it off and plays through the set before jumping straight into bed ahead of the drive to Berlin.

As Whitney arrive at the Sommerloft, staff are disposing of blow-up dolls that were the main attraction at last night’s sex party. This somewhat taints the initial al-fresco charm, along with the PVC mattresses I later discover tucked between trees, but it’s a pleasant little venue all the same. As the sun sets, Whitney take to the stage and their soulful tunes prove to be the perfect way to welcome the exciting prospects of a balmy summer’s night. Later, somewhere between basketball and bedtime, Ehrlich receives news their shows later in the year are close to selling out, “Golden Days” is the third most played song on US college radio and Light Upon the Lake has received a total of 85 spins in retail outlets like Levis, Converse and Vans. He’s taken aback: “That’s crazy.”

It’s in moments like these you see Ehrlich’s humility and love for playing music and for “his boys” (his term of endearment for the rest of the band which is in no way a jockish sentiment, but an expression of love akin to family), and it makes you happy to know that fame is secondary and music the priority to Whitney.

Next stop: The Netherlands.

A well-deserved beer in Brussels

They reach Amsterdam via a wild show in Groningen. The venue, OT301, is a spacious squat, part-time organic café, and sweatbox in the 30-degree heat that calls for a shirtless sound check. As the show starts, the temperature rises. Everyone stays to watch apart from one guy who comes back from the bathroom midway through their Everly Brothers cover of “So Sad” to ask his friend if it’s off the new album. It's a forgivable question as it’s an upbeat take on the original that like “Golden Days” smuggles melancholy lyrics under joyful guitar, making it a perfect fit for their set. Ehrlich announces there will be an encore that will consist of him standing up and fanning himself with his T-shirt. He’s often blasé about the encore formality and has the effortless ability to engage a crowd like Dean Martin. This playfulness underlies every performance, somewhat restoring my faith in the contemporary music scene; as too often you'll see a band that maintain an “I don’t give a f***” scowl throughout.

The latter half of the tour takes Whitney to a short festival circuit, first of which is JuWi-Fest at Münster University. They come out to an empty stage at 7.30pm but by the end of their set are playing to a full crowd, albeit a crowd more interested in having a conversation with the person next to them and dancing halfheartedly than paying attention to the set.

The band have a welcome day off before playing Ewijk’s Down The Rabbit Hole – an eccentric, non-profit comedy and music festival with surreal installations and a clay sculpture station. This turns out to be Whitney’s biggest show yet. A heaving tent contains an audience besotted with every song and the cheer as they leave is deafening. The next show in Haldern is the antithesis of the last. It’s a free entry, 60 capacity bar (in fact it’s the only bar in Haldern), but Whitney are just as well received as the night before and Ehrlich gives the best trash-can ending of “On My Own” of the tour. The next few days take them to equally small but positive shows in Jena and Munchen, with it all coming to an end at Rosklide Festival in Denmark; a show much like Down The Rabbit Hole – a packed tent and enthusiastic crowd.

In two weeks they’ve travelled over 3,000 miles, played a total of 16 shows, three festivals, and appeared on a handful of radio stations, and the second half of the year has much more to come; including some writing time. Listening to Whitney might be like waving at someone from the other side of the road, but seeing them live is like that someone being Kit Harrington, and him recording a personalised voicemail message on your phone.