I stumbled up Young the Giant when the adorable 21 yr old lead singer Sameer Gadhia’s image graced one of my most favorite Tumblr pages. I had to see what kind of music he played and after watching the six “Open Session” video on continuous repeat, I was simply hooked. Here’s my favorite of the mix for your #MusicMonday.

Young the Giant’s self titled debut album just dropped ($5 for month of May at Amazon!), and I can’t stop listening to it. With a clearly California sound, the music takes you through on a road trip of sounds through desert romance to beachy carefreeness. No surprise, considering the band is from Orange County and has just made it big, selling out shows as they tour across the country.

The group won a contest on music-marketing website Sonicbirds to open for Kings of Leon at a January 2009 concert at Chicago’s House of Blues…. That show piqued label interest, and the group played music showcase South by Southwest a couple months later… The band ended up signing with Roadrunner Records, which released its self-titled debut digitally in the fall and physically this January (22,000 copies sold to date). [usatoday]

Sameer also has talked about his Indian background influencing his sound.

I’ve been around a lot of Indian classical. My sister is an amazing singer, and my mom and my dad’s mother used to sing, so Indian classical is something that I grew up listening to. Even though I started getting into different American styles early on, I still had that influence in the back of my head, so when I’d start writing, some of the melodies would twirl along that axis. [lamusicblog]

The band heads out in an international tour in May, but hang tight – they’ll be back Stateside to play Lollapalooza this August. If I was in Chicago, I’d definitely check them out. But if you can’t, this one is for you.