Band Spotlight: Urban Heat

February 16, 2025

Welcome back to my Black History Month spotlight series. Last week, we talked about a movie; this week is the band spotlight, and it features a band I've enjoyed a lot over the past year and a half: Urban Heat.

In August 2023, a good friend and I attended a show at an underground venue where the headliner was Vision Video, a goth band whose singer and guitarist, Dusty Gannon, is also known by the pseudonym "Goth Dad" in his popular TikTok videos. As fans of Goth Dad, my friend and I were there to see the headliner. But while I enjoyed their set and Dusty's on-stage rants about political and social issues (which I very much agree with him on), it was the supporting act, Urban Heat, that stole the show for both of us.

A relatively "new" band (formed in 2019), their sound has been described as falling into the post-punk, synthpop, or gothic rock genre. Despite being a pretty young band, Urban Heat -- hailing from Austin, Texas, by the way -- have already had the opportunity to tour Europe and other parts of the world, and it's pretty easy to see why they've gained popularity enough to do so. Along with two of my top-tier metal bands, Battle Beast and Eleine, their 2023 show helped them join the ranks of the few bands I started listening to after seeing them live because their performance had impressed me so much.

Prior to that night, I had never heard of Urban Heat or seen what they looked like, so I now look back in amusement at the moment I noticed Jonathan Horstmann walking through the crowd before their set, and was immediately drawn to how cool he looked, having no idea he was actually the lead singer and founder of the band that was about to go on stage. In a venue filled to the brim with impeccably-dressed goths, packed to the point that people were having to go outside to avoid passing out from heat exhaustion, he had enough charisma to draw my attention as he passed by, and enough style to make me admire his overall look. So as soon as I saw the band take the stage and realized he was their frontman, I thought "Oh, well, that checks out." He has the perfect energy to be a frontman, and his stage presence is one of the reasons their live shows are always so enjoyable.

They performed a set of 10 songs that night, and from Jonathan's on-stage comments as well as the setlists from other shows on the same tour, I gather that we were very fortunate to hear 2 extra songs compared to other cities. One because they began playing a few minutes early, and one because they still had enough time at the end of the set to throw in another song, so the normal 8-song set was basically book-ended by these extras. To me, the fact that they chose to give us two additional songs instead of taking that extra time to relax shows how dedicated they are to their craft as well as to the fans; it was the first thing about them that earned a certain amount of respect from me.

And the second extra song they played, the encore that closed out the set, was one of my favorite songs of the night. After it was released as a single months later, I became obsessed with it, and was glad I'd gotten to hear it live before many other people as a little bonus gift from the band that night.

The song I'm referring to is Like This. My other favorite tracks from that show included Right Time of Night, and the unfortunately very relatable song, A Simple Love Song, the chorus of which states, "I wish I could write you a simple love song, but the world keeps falling apart."

The second thing that made me have a lot of respect for them was when my friend and I spoke to them briefly at the merch table after the show. My friend bought a shirt; I would have liked to, but the truth is I was incredibly broke that night. And I mean, my bank account was already in the negatives due to large and necessary expenses I'd had that week. I sheepishly explained this to Jonathan when he asked if there was anything he could get me. He reinforced that he wasn't trying to pressure me, which of course I knew, but I told him that I do try to support bands by buying merch whenever I can, and since I enjoyed their set so much I would definitely buy something if I weren't in the middle of such a rough patch. I was then surprised by their bassist, Paxel Foley, who had overheard the conversation, handing me two of their stickers at no charge. It was only a $6 value, but it meant a lot to me because it showed that the band cares about their fans, even brand-new fans, who for all they knew may never listen to them again.

I did listen to them again, though. Obviously.

They were the first band I saw live in 2024, and the first band I saw live in 2025 (other than an opener who played before them this time around).

The 2024 show was a free show at a new venue that had just opened up, making it the second time I'd actually seen them for free, as the tickets for the 2023 show had been given to us by someone who could no longer make it. I did make sure to not only buy something from their merch table this time around (a bottle of one of their fragrances -- yes, they make fragrances!) but also requested the person at the merch table add $6 to my total for the cost of the last year's stickers. They said that wasn't necessary, but I felt like it was. Especially since the band was playing a show where tickets were entirely free. I had a great time seeing them -- this time from the front of the stage and knowing the material better -- and positive experiences with the band members after.

Bands who care about the music and fans enough to do things like playing free shows, adding unplanned songs to the set just because there's extra time, and giving away small merch items for free are bands who deserve my support.

After I started following them on social media, I realized even more how deserving they are of that support and respect. While the majority of their content is, of course, music-related, Jonathan has frequently made videos on the band's official accounts that are not only about music but about the many issues that plague our country and world, such as homophobia and transphobia. He has also made statements while on stage supporting people who may be victims of this sort of hatred. While it isn't surprising in any way that the band members would have the stances they do -- as any alternative artist who doesn't feel this way is kind of against everything the subcultures stand for -- I have so much respect for artists who use their platform to loudly speak up about it.

Jonathan has also shared videos about mental health and sobriety, even creating a server on Discord where sober Urban Heat fans can create community with each other. (Jonathan himself has now been sober for over 6 years, according to the dates he's shared in the past.)

So of course when I heard they were playing a show in my state in February 2025, a show that I couldn't make it to because of work commitments and the fact that it was in the next major city (about two hours away), I was curious if any dates in my own city would follow. I commented on their Instagram post asking this, and hilariously, they announced the dates for a small tour the next day while directly calling out my comment in the text of their post. Luckily, the date they were going to be in my city -- which was this past Sunday -- was one I was able to attend.

Starting out the show with what is actually one of my current song obsessions (Running Out of Time), Jonathan noticed some sound issues in his in-ear monitor (and to be honest, the sound from where I was standing didn't sound perfect either), and ended up stopping the show a minute or so into the song in order to get those issues fixed first, stating, "We can't give you the best show possible if we can't hear ourselves."

During this pause, Jonathan said that he had recently signed up for Cameo and somebody had asked him to film a video message for his wife for Valentine's Day. He asked the crowd if they would help him make the video, which everyone enthusiastically agreed to. He filmed the Cameo from the stage and featured the crowd cheering at the end, then thanked everyone and said "You just helped me make $10."

Once the sound issue was figured out, they started over from the beginning, and Running Out of Time now sounded like it was meant to sound.

Though I don't have a copy of the setlist from that night, I believe they did a total of 15 songs, which is the longest set I've seen them do yet, and included many songs from their new album -- which had not yet been released when I'd seen them previously -- such as Take It to Your Grave, which I think is one of their best songs and was definitely my favorite out of the ones I hadn't seen live before.

I don't usually like to compare bands to other bands, especially not a band that I think is actually good. A band of creative people doesn't just copy another band's sound, and I get frustrated with bands who try to do that in order to capitalize off of someone else's popularity (looking at you, the million Nightwish copycats that exist). Of course there are influences that make it into their music, though. Urban Heat doesn't sound exactly like any other band I can name, but there are elements of their songs that occasionally remind me of another band's sound, making their songs almost like a salad in which various influences from older bands come together and mix with their own personal sounds. I don't know if any of these were intentional, but bands I've heard elements of in their music include Devo, Depeche Mode, The Birthday Massacre, Switchblade Symphony, AFI, and even a bit of doom metal bands like Candlemass -- all things I enjoy and approve of -- in addition to other bands in the gothic, post-punk, and new wave genres. A Simple Love Song has been compared to Talking Heads a lot. But overall, they don't give the impression that they're trying to copy anybody, but would rather forge their own path.

One other thing that sets Urban Heat apart from a lot of other goth bands, no matter how insignificant it is to their music, is that only one of the band's three long-term members, Kevin Naquin, is white. While race shouldn't matter when it comes to music, we unfortunately live in a world where it does, and in an overwhelmingly white -- and occasionally racist -- subculture, a band being 2/3 Black does make them stand out.

Where I live -- and probably in Austin, TX where Urban Heat is from -- I feel like our goth scene is fairly diverse and includes many people of color due to the city we live in being large and diverse in its own right, though even here it's still majority white. In other places, I've heard it's far worse when it comes to the local goth scene being accepting of non-white members. While I believe this goes against everything goth is supposed to be about, it's an unfortunate truth that racism exists within the subculture. So even if it shouldn't be a big deal for a band to be non-white... it still is.

Since I was seeing Urban Heat live last week, I awkwardly decided to tell Jonathan that I was writing this post about them for Black History Month, and asked if there was anything he'd like to say about his experience being a person of color in a majority-white genre. Not wanting to put him on the spot too much, I tried to stress that it wasn't necessary for him to say anything at all if he didn't want to, and I would simply leave this part of the article out altogether. But he handled it with his usual grace and approachability. I wasn't going to pull out my phone and record him, so of course this is paraphrased, but Jonathan basically mentioned playing at a couple of festivals last year and reflecting on how it's pretty much on them to be the sole representation for their culture, pointing out that it's a double-edged sword because, while it's cool to have that opportunity, it sucks that it was ever needed in the first place.

Because Pax doesn't seem to be as outspoken as Jonathan -- not that he isn't approachable as well, he's just a bit more reserved -- I decided to leave him alone rather than pester him with my weird questions. Sorry, Jonathan... it comes with the territory of being the frontman, I guess.

Overall, Urban Heat is a band filled with very deserving musicians, so I'm happy that they're receiving the support they are. If you like any of the songs I linked above, then I recommend seeing them live if you have the opportunity. While their albums are of course still enjoyable, they really shine as a live band, and supporting live music is important if we want bands to continue being able to perform for us. Follow their Instagram and other socials for information regarding the band's upcoming shows, new releases, merch, etc.

I will leave you with a lyric and a question:

tags: black history month, music