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413

Metadata

title
413
description
Exist Elsewhere’s 2013 EP: Luke Francis Walton, Brandon Woodward, Noah Benardout, and Nick Petrou; Kinect-shot Tokyo video and four-part harmonies at USC Thornton.
year
2013
releaseDate
2013-08-02
releaseType
EP
artist
Exist Elsewhere
artistId
#existelsewhere
spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/47ORPqoD0omGkbQR2koyW8
apple
https://music.apple.com/us/album/413-ep/681835750
youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7wUKeN1Odo
youtubeLabel
Tokyo music video
tracks
  • title
    Tokyo
    song
    tokyo
  • title
    Can't Fall
    song
    cant-fall
  • title
    Unwhole
    song
    unwhole
  • title
    Genesis
    song
    genesis
press
draft
false

Content

413 is the debut EP by Exist Elsewhere, a four-piece from USC Thornton’s Popular Music Program in the early 2010s:

Noah Benardout (lead vocals, guitar, keys) · Luke Francis Walton (lead guitar, vocals; co-write, co-produce) · Brandon Michael Woodward (drums, vocals; later half of FEiN) · Nick Petrou (bass, vocals), per Andrew Gant’s Tokyo credits

Origin: Exist Elsewhere started when Luke joined Noah Benardout’s backing band. After a residency at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, the group evolved into a full band. Two early songs were recorded at Blue Microphones’ corporate studio in the Los Angeles area; those recordings are preserved on SoundCloud via the engineer who tracked the sessions.

The band won the 2013 Macworld/iWorld iNDIE iNNOVATION Championship in San Francisco on January 31, 2013 — finals against Mister Loveless via Sonicbids, documented on the official Macworld/iWorld session video (Exist Elsewhere at 28:12). Prize: open for Little Feat at the Mezzanine Blast party. Their sound was tagged as Daft Punk-meets-Phoenix / Muse-meets-Coldplay, with layered arrangements and four-part vocal harmonies, self-produced in Pro Tools and Logic.

The EP landed August 2, 2013: four tracks, about seventeen minutes, on Spotify and Apple Music: Tokyo, Can’t Fall, Unwhole, Genesis. Can’t Fall later synced nationally in a Pantene commercial featuring Zooey Deschanel, the band’s PR Newswire bio names the placement. The Tokyo music video, directed by Andrew Gant for Private School Entertainment: got an unusually tech-forward treatment for the era. Gant’s portfolio calls it the project that split his career toward narrative film and volumetric/VFX capture (RGBDToolkit / Kinect lineage); No Film School and Kotaku featured it (per his credits page). A behind-the-scenes featurette documents making film and art with the Xbox Kinect as capture device. Other public footprints include sessions at Olympus Audio Studios and a live Tokyo performance on The Artie Lange Show.

Live archive: Getty / WireImage documents the 413 lineup on Sunset Strip Music Festival — Day 1 (August 2, 2013, West Hollywood): Nick Petrou (bass), Brandon Woodward (drums), Noah Benardout (vocals/guitar), Luke Walton (guitar) — the same release date as 413. Earlier live: Live on Isle of Wight Radio (Oct 14, 2012, Bandcamp) — Aaron Dowler on bass; not on the EP, and the only known Exist Elsewhere recording with Dowler. A formative early live source: Exist Elsewhere performing Noah Benardout’s "Luna" (YouTube). Early work is also archived at Luke Walton Music on ReverbNation and Noah Benardout on ReverbNation.

In the Luke Walton timeline, Exist Elsewhere sits after The Luke Walton Band (San Diego → USC, 2009–2011) and before FEiN (2014 onward): Walton and Woodward’s first Thornton band together, a four-piece production unit before the later duo. Song-meaning notes: Tokyo · Can’t Fall · Unwhole · Genesis (4/4).

Noah Benardout (1995–2019) went on to record as LOVR®; he was killed by a drunk driver in August 2019. May he rest in peace. The Noah Benardout Foundation advocates DUI prevention in his memory. Please consider a donation there or to similar causes.

Listen: Spotify · Apple Music · Tokyo music video · Andrew Gant: Tokyo · Can't Fall: Pantene commercial · Tokyo Kinect BTS (Vimeo)