Detroit's The True Blue drops new single, gears up for first headlining show at the Magic Stick

Band focuses on creating music, honing sound

The True Blue (Photo: Jesse Speelman)

DETROIT – The True Blue dropped a new single this week ahead of their first headlining show Saturday at the Magic Stick in Detroit.

Christian Koo, Ben Wilkins, Koda Hult and Jake Burkey aren’t new to the stage, though.
The guys bring about a decade worth of music experience to the band that will celebrate its three-year anniversary this summer.

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They’ve played plenty of shows around Metro Detroit while they work on building a local audience. While Koo thinks they probably could have headlined a show sooner, he feels that 2019 is a good time for that to happen.

“I think now more than ever, we have a good grasp on who we are,” he said.

The self-described pop band fuses indie, electronic and R&B influences into a sound that they hope defines who they are but doesn’t limit what they create.

“I want things to be special and I want things to be unique but it’s never my intention to sit down and work on a project and be like, ‘We have to change how people hear music,’” Koo said. “Even if you kind of brand yourself as one genre-esque, it pigeonholes you. It can get really stale really quickly.”

Koo said one of his biggest influences has been The 1975 because the group makes music that combines a mix of sounds without coming off as unorganized. He said he sees the music as all over the place, but in a way that brands The 1975.

Honing their brand, creating something people can associate with them and making music when it feels right is a major priority for The True Blue.

Koo said the guys have all played in bands in the past, while performing together under a different name previously. They noticed as they got older, they were getting scatterbrained.

To combat that issue, the ever-evolving band is set on producing music that they like as frequently as they can.

“It’s fun because we’re in a situation where we don’t really have anyone to answer to,” Koo said.

The True Blue released “Making My Bed” on Friday. It follows October’s EP, “Somewhere I Go Often.”

While the band is performing and working on new music, it isn’t clear when more music could be expected or what could be next, at least not yet.

“We really try not to let quality suffer for the sake of trying to stay relevant,” Koo said.

Catch the True Blue with Jake LeMond, Sara Marie Barron and  Signature Mistakes on March 30 at the Magic Stick in Detroit. Click here for tickets.