WALK THE MOONโs Nicholas Petricca, Kevin Ray, Sean Waugaman and Eli Maiman hit the stage at iHeartRadioโs first annual ALTer EGO 2018 at The Forum in Los Angeles on Friday, January 19, officially reestablishing themselves as "a bandโs band of dudes playing rock music together.โ
The Cincinnati, Ohio-formed band performed new hits โOne Foot,โ โKamikaze,โ "Surrender," 2014 smash hit โShut Up and Dance,โ and 2010 throwback โAnna Sun.โ
โThe song โShut Up and Danceโ kind of exploded in a way that in a number of ways kind of outpaced the band and we were trying to keep our identity as this three-dimensional unit that has a depth of catalog and isnโt just this one song,โ the band told Harms and The Woody Show backstage while discussing why they wanted to reestablish themselves as a rock band. โSo with this record we were definitely looking to really cement ourselves as a bandโs band of dudes playing rock music together.โ
Their ALTer EGO performance marked a stop along their What If Nothing tour, which marked their return to the road after they were forced to cancel their 2016 summer tour. As fans well understood, Nick tended to a family matter, revealing his dad was suffering from Alzheimerโs Disease. His father passed away in February 2017.
โMy dad had Alzheimerโs, and I realized how much my family needed me. That was a really intense moment for us. After five years on the road, 300 days a year, and then suddenly this big void? It brought up stuff within the band: I was [then] dealing with the death of my father, and meanwhile, Kevin [Ray] was getting married and my love life was upside down,โ he told Entertainment Weekly at the time. โI was exploring my spirituality and my sexuality. Coming back together, we had to navigate a lot of that stuff.โ
And navigate they did. While describing successful 2017 comeback album, What If Nothing, Nicholas concluded: โThis album is based around looking into the unknown and realizing that it could all go to s--t or it could be the best thing in your life. This record, even more than the last one, is really raw lyrically, while the sound seems more epic. Weโre reaching higher and further with each sound, but the lyrics are closer to the heart.โ
In fact, the band solidified their union by getting matching tattoos!!
โA few of us did them,โ they told The Woody Show backstage. โWe had a connection to this amazing tattoo artist named JonBoy out of New York who kindly had us [come in] before [we performed] on Fallon. โฆ We got something to commemorate โOne Footโ on one foot."