Kaleo

Triple 8 Management’s Bruce Kalmick wasn’t the only one who saw something special in Kaleo, which, when he met them, hadn’t even left their tiny homeland of Iceland let alone sold any tickets yet.

Terence Patrick/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. – Kaleo

Just days after flying to Reykjavik to see the blues-rock band put on a pop-up show in an attic, “My phone was absolutely blowing up about Kaleo – literally every major label in the United States wanted in,” Kalmick told Pollstar. “To get that many labels interested, four offers right out of the box, was sort of a singular event.”

That was about three years ago, long before the band’s brooding “Way Down We Go” became a global hit, appearing on multiple TV shows, a movie trailer and even a videogame.

The touring story has been mostly headlining, with success early on.

“Everyone thought it was a risk, but we put up a headline run in 500- to 700-seaters in the top of 2016, and that headline run sold literally every single ticket,” Kalmick said. “We actually had to move up about half the venues,” with Boston going from Paradise Rock Club to House of Blues for a Sunday date.

“The rest of this year, the story is yet to be told, but we just announced the fall tour and sold out San Diego in minutes. We’re moving to a 4,500-capacity amphitheatre there … I think we’ll sell at least 90 percent of the tour, and that’s 2,000- to 5,000-seaters for the most part.”

Terence Patrick/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. – Kaleo

Globally the band is growing just as fast or faster. European dates this time around are mostly “1,200-seaters and we blew them out instantly. We’re actually in arenas now – in Cologne we’re at 6,000 sold and Hamburg just sold out this morning, 5,000 tickets.”

Kalmick added, “We’ll be into that 7,000-10,000 seats range going into the next album, and that’ll come sooner than people probably think.”

So what was it that he noticed that everyone seems to be trying to catch up to now?

“Sometimes you just know,” Kalmick said, comparing the band to stars like James Bay and Adele and crediting his team as well as Atlantic Records and WME. “The show is so absolutely phenomenal.”