Meet the Band

Origins

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In "The Resistance," Jupiter Winter's hooky debut single, multi instrumentalist and lead vocalist Lelia Broussard resolves the chorus with the line "love will find a way somehow."  While the song is a sharp and urgent attack at the current political temperature of the country, the refrain is a particularly resonant indicator of what is at the heart of this new Los Angeles-based indie pop rock band.

Lelia Broussard and Royce Whittaker, the primary songwriters and producers for Jupiter Winter, met on the road in the fall of 2015.  Broussard’s band, Secret Someones was opening for Vancouver’s Marianas Trench for whom Whittaker was a guitar tech.

Together they make indie pop music with emotional substance and a laser focus on structure and melody. 

Although relatively young still, the pair bring valuable stage and studio experience to the project. Broussard was featured in Rolling Stone Magazine and performed at The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.  Over the years, she has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Voice, toured extensively in North America and Europe, sharing the stage with such notables as Feist, Ingrid Michaelson, A Great Big World, and Sting. Whittaker began touring as a session guitarist at the age of eighteen and became musical director for the Canadian singer Jessica Lee shorty thereafter. After performing with the theatrical hard rock outfit Incura for a short stint and getting featured in Guitar World, his passion took him to the studio recognized by his award-winning work as a producer and engineer before coming on board with Marianas Trench in the summer of 2015. 

The duo’s synergy is especially palpable in “Paradise,” a song whose mainstream appeal comes not without a mature attention to craftsmanship.  While the rhythms are driving and move the song forward, the sonic palette, which is primarily comprised of Whittaker’s pulsing synths and clean, melodic guitar lines underneath Broussard’s emotive and soaring vocals is reminiscent of 80s pop synth sounds combined with the contemporary anthemic inclinations of bands like Metric and Robyn.  Other songs in their catalogue include the whimsical “Come Back,” which offers a punchy danceable synth bass reminiscent of early Whitney Houston.

Consistent throughout Jupiter Winter’s sound is a sense of joy even in the most serious of lyrical sentiments.  There is an earnest inventiveness that Broussard and Whittaker, two artists with considerably different histories in the industry, bring to the music, and their connection is integral to the band’s appeal.  Often the level of excitement a band brings to its art plays a big role in how that work is received by audiences. Jupiter Winter is certainly no exception.