“*Our goal isn’t to make any kind of rock and Roll dream… our goal is to make a living off what we love to do.*”
Ben Shaefer, drummer of We The Living

With one album under their belts, We The Living has been doing a great job at making a name for themselves.

This Wisconsin-native-currently-living-in-LA band left the crowd, and a few floors up and down Channel in Sandburg Hall, awed by their melodic and hard-to-place sound last Monday.

Lead singer John Paul (J.P.) Roney and drummer Ben Schaefer began as The Profits at the University of Wisconsin. They released their first album, “The Sign of the Dollar,” in 2004, and their second, “Far From You and Your Everyday Noise,” in 2005.

After two of their bandmates left, they added Matt Holmen on guitar and Stefan Benkowski (later to be Jasper Smith, who played Monday night) on bass and became We The Living.

Since then they’ve recorded and released, and re-released, “Heights of Heaven,” an entrancing and amazingly heart-melting album that I’ve not been able to stop listening to since I first heard it about 12 hours before seeing them live. I got a chance to catch up with the band as they arrived on campus and started getting set up. The guys play a different venue every night and have played 250 shows this year and cannot imagine it any other way. “Days off are horrible” said Ben. Matt and Jasper had little space to work with on the stage but they made their presence known. During Matt’s solos and the interludes, the lights would change and his hands looked like they were moving a mile a minute on that guitar and Jasper’s facial expressions were a mixture of concentration and excitement.

J.P. also didn’t have much space to work with but he moved around next to Jasper and Matt smoothly. While at the microphone he sang with all his heart and you could see that on his face. Ben felt every song as if it was the first time he had played the drums.

The guys had no cares on the stage other than that they were doing something they loved. “Our goal isn’t to make any kind of rock and roll dream…our goal is to make a living off what we love to do,” said Ben and so far they’ve been successful.

“We’re only getting better slightly faster than gas prices are rising,” said J.P.

They run their band as a business every day and don’t need or want to be signed with a label to do so. “We don’t want to be making pre-fabricated music. We want to do what we love every day,” said J.P.

The show began with “Atlantic” and “75 and 17” which happen to be two of my favorite songs. They were just as perfect as the album. I can’t say much more than that. Any other words would be doing the songs injustice.

“Typical,” the first song on “Heights of Heaven,” came next. J.P. connects with every person in the crowd and his voice is just so amazingly different than anything I’ve ever heard that I couldn’t help but watch.

“St. Paul” was stuck in my head for about six hours before the concert started. It sounded better live than on the album and when J.P. went quiet near the end of the song I could hear everyone singing along, something they said they loved to have happen.

Next came “London Rain” which has a wonderful quality I can’t place and was followed by “Best Laid Plans” which was dedicated to Perez Hilton after he mentioned We The Living in his blog. It’s Perez’s favorite song, so it was fitting.

They next performed a Depeche Mode cover followed by “Half The Girl,” which was absolutely amazing. I didn’t realize from the album that the song could be rocked out to so well. After that was “Barometers,” and a Sufjan Stevens cover, both of which were incredible.

The last song of the night was dedicated to the first-timers; myself included. I remember during warm-up, when J.P. started singing “History” I felt as if nothing could sound sweeter and I felt the same when he played it to close out a remarkable night.

“Heights of Heaven” can be bought for less than $10 on iTunes.

We The Living play in the area again at Loyola University in Illinois on April 23, UW- Stevens Point on May 9, UW- La Crosse on May 10, and Middleton West High School in Middleton, Wis. on May 31.

To check out more about the band, visit their Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/wetheliving

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