Cheyenne Medders is the proverbial patriarch of this band of brothers. The eldest, doe-eyed and soft-spoken, he is also the lead singer. His younger brothers Carson and Will back him up on the guitar and percussion, respectively. The odd man out is Joshua Stauter, the classically-trained pianist who sometimes rocks out so hard that he passes out on his keyboard.

When they took the time to chat with Blast about their new album, which was released in September, they described it with words like “haunting,” “dancing,” “rockin’” and “quirky.” Swinging melodies wrap around Cheyenne Medders’ soulful, scratchy southern voice, and make all of these descriptions true. But the passion in his voice on the record was there while he talked to us – this is a man who cares deeply about creating music…even if it’s about insects.

Blast: How would you describe your music to someone who hadn’t heard it?

Cheyenne Medders: I try to name old bands that people would know of and say we’re definitely influenced by The Band and The Beatles and Wilco, and newer people like The Arcade Fire.

It’s kind of impossible. I just wish they would hand me a guitar and I would just play you one of my songs. My taste in music is so broad. I am equally enthralled by the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” and the song “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire. And their sounds don’t really have anything to do with each other, but they all inform the music that I make.

Blast: So tell me a little bit about your new album, “The Medders.”

Cheyenne Medders: We all recorded it ourselves and produced it ourselves. These songs, they kind of go into some new territory. The first song is a really solid, Americana ballad about getting in trouble, being a gunslinger. And then they’ve caught you and you’re gonna get hung. It’s got this really cool piano lick that kind of keeps it drivin’. People have said it sounds like Neil Young and Tom Petty, a little bit. The whole album goes in some really cool directions, I think.

Then the next song is totally, kind of out in left field. It’s called “Win Win.” I wrote that song sitting on a porch at my house, and I was just lookin’ at all the insects. I had a guitar in my hand — I’m a firm believer that the best songs come when you’re not trying to write a song, when you’re not trying to force one out. Some kind of inspiration just comes along, and if you’re lucky, or if it’s meant to be, you have a guitar in your hand or you’re sittin’ at a piano. Or you’re just walkin’, you have some sort of rhythm and you make it into a song. So I was just contemplating the insects on my porch and thinking about how they have to experience time differently than we do because their whole life span is just a matter of days. So it’s kind of a quirky, silly song, but it ends up with a pretty rockin’ outro.

The next song after that is “Bee Free Honey.” It’s probably the weirdest most unexplainable title of the album. Really, it just comes from three words from the song put together in a weird way. On that song we brought in some guest musicians, Claire Indie on cello and Jordan Hamlin on French horn and trumpet. So it kind of has this orchestration…feel to it that I like a lot.

After that there’s kind of a dance beat thing. Then kind of a slow dirge kind of song. I really can honestly say that I’m proud of the songs on the album. I love them all.

Blast: I know you all can play more than one instrument and you do a lot of switching around. How do you work that out?

Cheyenne Medders: We have done a little bit of switching around. We haven’t had a permanent bass player in awhile. Ideally we have one of our friends…play bass for us. That allows me and Carson both to play guitar, which is what we love to do. When I’m singin’ I like to play guitar.

Josh, or Joshua , as he likes to be called, handles all the keyboard stuff. He’s just one of those guys that’s just incredibly musically inclined. He can just kinda hear somethin’ and he’ll come up with his own part, which is something I love. I don’t like to teach people parts, because if they come up with it themselves, then they’ll play it with more passion.

Will is on the drums. He also plays the lap steel guitar. He’s kind of developed a little knack for the slide instruments. In “Terminus,” there’s a kind of haunting electric guitar sound that just goes in and out.

Blast: You’ve all been making music for years. You went solo for a while, but now you’re all together. And how did Josh come into the equation?

Cheyenne Medders: Geographically we were separated for awhile. We all went to college, but by the time my brothers got there, I was on my way out. And I wanted to hurry up and move to Nashville, because my cousin’s studio was just callin’ my name. I wanted a place where I could just record uninhibitedly. When they were done with school, they moved here. So I call it just being a “real band.”

Carson Medders: I met Josh one day when he was a freshman and I was a sophomore. All the freshmen were supposed to be at orientation. I was hangin’ out in Will’s dorm room…and I started playing guitar in there. I thought the building was empty…

Cheyenne Medders: And he was shaking the walls! He was playing Jimmy Page.

Carson Medders: I was playin’ pretty loud because Josh heard me from the third floor. He was asleep and I woke him up. He came down and knocked on the door and came in and kinda startled me. And was like “Hey, mind if I hang out or whatever?” And I was like “Sure.”

And he picked up a guitar and started playing along with me, but he wasn’t that great. I didn’t know how I felt about him. But then kind of as he was leavin’, he mentioned that he was classically trained on the piano. And so at that point we were just trying to put something together. I thought “If he’s really good at piano and he liked our stuff, that would be a big asset.” So I invited him to a practice and it ended up working out. But I will admit at first he was his personality was pretty different than ours…

Cheyenne Medders: Well, you mentioned that he was asleep when he heard you on guitar. We thought he was narcoleptic. Because we would be just playing a song, a pretty loud song, and he’d just be hammerin’ on the organ. Then we’d just hear this dissonant organ chord just totally sustained, just *werrrr* and we looked over and Josh’s head would just be on the keys.

Carson Medders: He used to work overnight a lot. So then during the day he just couldn’t really keep it together. So we didn’t really know what was wrong with him. But turns out he’s a great guy, so…

Blast: So Cheyenne, on your Facebook profile it says that your three favorite songs all have “country boy” somewhere in the title.

Cheyenne Medders: I am kind of a country boy. I was definitely born and raised out in the country. That’s not too surprising. There’s an old guy named Jimmy Driftwood. He was a great folk singer…there’s nobody like him. He’s just a master storyteller with a voice from Heaven. He’s got a song called “The Country Boy,” one of my favorite songs.

I was also thinking about “Thank God I’m A Country Boy” by John Denver, which is one of the most joyous pieces of music I’ve ever heard in my life.

Then there’s an Alison Krauss song…called “You’re Just A Country Boy.” And it’s beautiful. And way different than the other country boy songs.

Blast: What effect do you think that has on your music? Would you call it country?

Cheyenne Medders: It’s really not.

Blast: Not in the traditional sense?

Cheyenne Medders: Or in a modern sense! Country gave birth to rock and roll. Country jazz and blues from up until the forties and fifties came together. That’s what rock and roll came out of.

And I am a sucker for a lot of old country, like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. And what music fan isn’t?

When we were kids we were really immersed in the country industry cause our dad was a staff writer here in Nashville for Diamond Rio and Pam Tillis. Our cousin made a huge career out of writing modern country songs. The country of the late 80s and the early 90s has a strong nostalgia with me. It’s the kind of thing where you just know all the words to every hit of that time because that’s what was on the radio wherever you went. Whether you walked into Cracker Barrel or a gas station, or your dad was dropping you off at school, all these songs like “Two Of A Kind Working On A Full House” was on the radio, and it kind of becomes part of who you are. So no matter how far away you get from it musically, a little vein of that’s still gonna run through it. Whether it’s just the cleverness of the lyrics or the catchy melodies or whatever.

Blast: What plans do The Medders’ have for the future?

Cheyenne Medders: We’re working with a few non-profit organizations (Living Water International and Mission Lazarus). Their main focus is to drill wells for communities that don’t have clean water. The water crisis — you might even say it’s the worst crisis out there. So many people die from not having clean water.

So me and some friends had this idea to pitch to college campuses, and we’re calling it “We’ll Play for Water.” We’re gonna tour colleges…try to construe it to where every dollar that comes in from the public or from a college that hires us to play will go straight to build wells.

Blast: Every dollar?

Cheyenne Medders: That’s the idea. I didn’t think it was possible at first…If you can find some donors, just people with a lot of money that want to do some good with it, you could conceivably come up with all of your administration costs. Then all of the money that comes from the public could go to the cause. I think it’s gonna be good.

The Medders’ self-titled album is now available on iTunes. Check out their Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/themedders

But this indie band won’t be categorized.

Springing out of Abilene, Texas and now residing in Austin, the band is promoting their new album 20,000 Ghosts by embarking on a 31-date national tour. Blast caught up with them while they were playing in Boston, and they talked about everything from what itis like to record their first full album to their biggest influence, Miley Cyrus.

In a lot of ways, The Rocketboys are just like every other indie band you’ve seen — they’re long-haired, scruffy-faced boys wearing pearl snaps and skinny jeans. But as the six of us chatted in the back of their tour van, which didn’t take very well to the cobblestone streets of Boston, it became clear that the Rocketboys are not just another indie band.

“Anyone can make an artist myspace,” said lead singer Brandon Kinder, “and get their music out to different people. But I think there’s a certain level where it’s a little bit more than just a fun thing you’re doing.”

The Rocketboys are trying to get ahead of the game by being what few indie bands are with their music — responsible.

“We’re trying to separate ourselves by pursuing music professionally without the support of a record label,” said Daniel Wheeler, guitarist. “We have an extensive tour schedule. We have a publicist. We’re trying to surround ourselves with a team that a record label would provide to a band, but weire trying to do it ourselves, because we like having control of the business of our band.”

Add professionalism to a band that sounds as good live as on a record, and itis a surprise that these guys havenit been signed yet. Their show later that evening backed up bassist Josh Campbellis assertion that sounding good live is something else that sets The Rocketboys apart.

“It’s pretty easy now to like, get garageband and lay down a song, and autotune it,” Campbell said. “We take a lot of pride in our live shows, and making (them) as good as they can be, because I think thatis where some bands are lacking.”

The expansive sound of The Rocketboys’ music is enhanced by their deeply personal lyrics, like these from Heartbeat:

“I would sell you out in a heartbeat/Cause you can defend yourself.”

But songwriting is the one thing that The Rocketboys don’t hold to an exact formula. Band members propose ideas to one another and piece together songs, aiming for catchy melodies with hooks.

“But we definitely try to take bits and pieces of bands that we like and we just put together things that we think sound good,” said keyboard player Justin Wiseman. “And inevitably it borrows a little bit from other people, but our idea is just creating beautiful music.”

According to Brandon Kinder, though, the order of production usually stays the same.

Typically, it’s always music first. Ask questions later.

Though they’ve been playing together since college, 20,000 Ghosts is The Rocketboys first full album. “It was like what we’d done in the past, but amplified, said guitarist Daniel Wheeler. They said the recording sessions, which often lasted up to 10 hours, were exhausting, but in the end, they came out with a product that they could be proud of.

“We’re just trying to create something timeless that people can enjoy,” said Kinder.

The band, who has played with now-popular bands like Grizzly Bear and Eisley, said they really look up to artists like Andrew Byrd, My Morning Jacket and Miley Cyrus?

“She’s pretty much our main influence,” said Kinder with a wry smile.

The next stop for the band after Boston was New York City’s CMJ Music Festival.

“We’re very excited,” said Kinder. “It was kind of a close call. We were kind of accepted at the last minute. We were kind of planning our tour around potentially playing it, which may or may not be the best way to plan a tour”

But like Kinder said, they got accepted and went on to play in one of the nation’s biggest cities for up-and-coming musicians. The Rocketboys’ formula seems to be working so far, and if they continue producing quality music like the stuff on 20,000 Ghosts, we’ll be hearing from them for years to come.

Visit The Rocketboys’ website at myspace.com/rocketboys, and look for their album “20,000 Ghosts” on iTunes.

Taubenfeld first made a name for himself as the musical composer and lead guitarist for Avril Lavigne. He penned most of her biggest hits including, “Happy Ending” and her multi-platinum “The Best Damn Thing”, but now he is striking out on his own and beginning the tumultuous journey of making a name for himself solo.

“Right now, I am the kid from Avril’s band. By the way, I’m really cool with that. She’s one of my best friends in the world. We have a lot of fun together, and we still work together,” clarified Taubenfeld. “I am starting now, by doing tours like this and putting out songs like ‘Cheater of the Year’ and ‘Boy Meets Girl’ and making videos and constantly traveling, trying to build a new name for myself. So some of the new people that get to know me go ‘That’s Evan!’ not ‘That’s Evan from Avril’s band!’”

At only 26, Taubenfeld has done pretty well for himself. Part of the credit could be given to him always knowing what he wants, and going about it in his own way. Taubenfeld was offered entrance to the Berklee School of Music for both vocals and drums, and turned both semesters down.

“I didn’t think what I wanted to do could be taught. I wanted to become a recording artist, a famous singer/songwriter, a popstar. I didn’t see how going to school could help me do that,” said Taubenfeld.

The fact that Taubenfeld was explaining his decision to us from his very own tour bus proves he’s doing all right, but he doesn’t knock music education for everyone.

“My brother, who is my lead guitarist and the music director for Demi Lovato, he went there for four years and he graduated. He’s incredible. I think it’s the perfect place for some people and the least perfect place for others. For Drew, my brother, it was perfect. He came out and he’s just a badass. For me, it probably would have been a really bad place. It’s just too structured and the way that I am as a songwriter, I don’t think the classroom would have helped me,” said Taubenfeld.

Instead, Taubenfeld uses his songs to help him. Songs like “Cheater of the Year”, the first single from his album “The Blackllist Club”, paint the picture of a younger more naïve Evan getting his heart stomped on by a first love. Taubenfeld explained that songs help him express the more romantic side of himself that he’s too afraid to show normally.

“I am a painfully hopeful romantic person but I hide it extremely well under a very heavily guarded heart because I’ve been hurt. I think I’m fifty-percent cynic who protects himself because to live in the world we live in, especially in LA and in the entertainment business, you have to be tough. The other fifty-percent is hoping to find the girl of my dreams and live happily ever after. I think that conflict is what my record is about if you listen to it,” Taubenfeld said.

Taubenfeld presents his broken heart on a record filled with catchy pop guitar driven hooks. He seems like a wet-dream for anyone going for the “after the Jonas Brothers” next big thing, so it’s a little surprising to hear Taubenfeld is managed by Crush – the same people responsible for Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Cobra Starship and others of the same vein. Despite not falling exactly into that demographic, Taubenfeld enjoys being part of the Crush family, and doesn’t let the differences keep him down.

“I think the Crush bands are incredible. I think they are very self sufficient. I am probably the least popular in terms of having my own following, and as far as having my own system that I run. They each have their own world,” said Taubenfeld, “but at the same time, I also think I am the most pop leaning so I also have the most potential to sell 50 million records on their roster.”

The truth is that Taubenfeld already is the biggest popstar on the label and has sold more records than you could conceive, just written for someone else. Now he’s out to prove he can do it with his face on the cover. His hyper and interactive demeanor shows no doubts about his potential to make it huge. He’s just being patient. Taubenfeld is here to show the world what he’s about, and he won’t stop until they take a listen.

“It is just expressing where I am in my life. I am excited to be on my own I am also a little bit nervous. I like to have a lot of fun,” explained Taubenfeld, “I think what I’m trying to say is – Hey what’s up? I’m Evan, I want to have a good time.”

That type of resilience has become routine for the members of Jet, who have seen their share of ups and downs in the past six years.

Blast spoke with the Cester siblings earlier this year (pre-fainting) about the making of “Shaka Rock,” which was released in the U.S. on August 25. Unlike other sibling bandmates, say, for instance, (the now-defunct?) Oasis, the Cesters try to keep whatever tumult exists in their relationship out of the spotlight. They come off as goofy and affable, an at times comic duo who both claim allergies to aluminum and Lady Gaga.

“Shaka Rock” is Jet’s first offering in three years. After they finished touring behind their previous record, 2006’s “Shine On,” the band members took a much-needed hiatus, to regroup individually and collectively from a roller coaster ride that had begun three years earlier.

Jet found near-instant success in the wake their debut album, 2003’s “Get Born,” which spawned the hit singles “Cold Hard Bitch” and “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” the latter of which was used in an Apple commercial. The Cesters admit their sudden, explosive rise to fame left them feeling dazed.

“I have no memory of 2003,” said Chris, 27. “It really was just one big show and one big canopy and one big whiskey slug. It was pretty nuts.”

While both gushed about being able to share stages with the likes of the Rolling Stones, they said the monotony of touring can be less than inspiring.

“(Musicians) are the kind of people, generally speaking … that want to sort of be excited, and they generally are excitable individuals,” Chris said. “On tour, that usually results in, you drink yourself to sleep every night because you’re going out of your fucking mind. So, touring can really rip you apart.”

The band’s follow-up, “Shine On,” was marred by the death of Chris and Nic’s father, who inspired the title track. Chris describes the time surrounding “Shine On” as “a black hole.”

“Mentally, physically … just, we were fucked up,” he said.

After taking time off and with both tragedy and triumph behind them, the band set out to make “Shaka Rock” with a healthier outlook and nothing to lose.

“I think we definitely felt a lot of pressure the last time (after the success of ‘Get Born’), but this time we didn’t really feel as much pressure at all,” Nic said. “We always put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but this time there was a noticeable lack of. We were in a happier place in our lives, and we’d been through some serious shit and got through it. And, (we’re) stronger and more equipped. So, I think it was a really good, natural sort of energy that these songs were borne from.”

The band channeled the positive vibes into a large-scale comeback concert of sorts, with an appearance at the Sound Relief benefit this past March for victims of the Australian wildfires.Jet played two televised shows in one day, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney, debuting new material in front of tens of thousands of audience members and countless other TV viewers.

“What a way to walk back onto a stage,” said Chris, widening his eyes. “I think everything sort of feels sort of better, including being able to come back on stage for the right reason, having produced your own album, and doing something beneficial to everybody else and playing for such a huge crowd. It’s just like, I haven’t felt this sort of confidence and happiness about doing what we do since our first record.”

Their sense of ownership is not misplaced. The band decided to adopt a new approach on nearly every aspect of the production of “Shaka Rock.

“Sitting down to write a record can be a real fucking drag if you don’t explore different ways of going about it,” Chris said matter-of-factly. “You need to find ways to keep yourself interested.”

“We just thought it was time to do something a little different than what we’d done in the past,” added Nic. “We took every measure to set that up. … We got away from L.A., and we changed record companies and we changed management. We shook things up and we ended up with an album that really sounds like we have.”

First up was a change in scenery. “Shaka Rock” was written and recorded in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as U.S. locales including Miami, Brooklyn, and Austin, Texas.

With the four band members spread out across the globe (in Italy, Australia, Los Angeles and London), the tracks were written, produced and rehearsed in different locales out of necessity.

“It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but one of the positives that comes with that is that, every time we meet it’s in an interesting part of the world,” Nic said. “And you really get the buzz off the energy that place has to offer for a while. It’s kind of fun, especially because we’re kind of gypsies by nature, and we’re kind of used to traveling a lot.”

The geographical new direction is reflected throughout the record — both overtly, as on the bluesy “Goodbye Hollywood,” and more subtly, on the summer-y disco track “Beat on Repeat,” which was recorded in Miami.

“I think Australians are generally like that,” Chris said. “Often we can’t agree on one spot, because we can’t go to London, (for instance), because then (guitarist Cam Muncey) just gets to go home every night and we have to stay in a fucking hotel room. So we tend to move around.”

Some of the new approaches that resulted in “Shaka Rock,” however, were not so calculated. An accident with a kitchen knife, for instance, forced the multi-instrumentalist Chris to begin composing songs on bass rather than guitar.

“When I returned (from a post-breakup vacation in Morocco) there was literally nothing in the house,” he recalled. “So, for the first time in my life I thought, well, yeah, I like to cook. So, I’ll go down and buy myself some German steel knives, like really good knives so I can cut anything. And then literally about half an hour – “

“They really can cut anything,” Nic interjected.

“Yeah, it can cut human flesh. I can attest to that,” Chris affirmed. “I actually chopped the top of my finger off. … So I had to learn how to play the bass, and that had a huge influence, a really dramatic influence, on the way I write songs. It’s more about rhythm.”

One thing Jet has stuck to is the tried and true swagger rock style a la AC/DC and the Rolling Stones that propelled the band’s popularity in the first place. Though the band members began expanding their musical horizons between records, listening to more electronically-tinged acts like Daft Punk, don’t look for any bells and whistles on “Shaka Rock” aside from the occasional pre-programmed hand clap.

“I don’t really abide by the electronic background track,” explained Chris. “I think it’s cheating, to be honest. So, while we’re inspired by a lot of those sort of newer things, we definitely kept it organic. It was just sort of more from an inspirational standpoint, rather than trying to capture the same sort of sonic ideas.”

Acting as co-producers on the album gave the band more control over which elements they wanted to incorporate and to what extent.

“I was a bit concerned about how that was gonna go down, because obviously we’d never done it before and basically there was five producers in the room at any one time,” Nic recalled. “That immediately resulted in a different sonic sound, and a bit more of an exploratory thing, because we’re just a bunch of guys in a room, having fun, trying shit out.”

But both say the process turned out to be a relatively smooth one, likely due to the fact that they’ve been friends with guitarist Cam Muncey and bassist Mark Wilson since they were all teenagers.

“We all write and we all have completely different outlooks on life, and they often don’t agree with each other,” Chris said. “(But) I think often with one guy or one girl who’s running the show, it can really sort of be monotonous. … I don’t want to hear two songs about one thing. If I want that, I’ll buy a Britney Spears record.”

Of course, some of the tension in the studio inevitably comes from an innate sibling rivalry between the Cesters. But both say that they consider all their bandmates brothers, even if they are the only two who are related by blood.

“Your brother really is the first person you want in a band, and the last person you want in a band,” Chris said. “It’s an interesting dichotomy.”

“Obviously, it’s a big factor,” according to Nic. “It is really difficult sometimes, and sometimes it’s really fun. … The good thing is there’s always one guy in the band that we all agree is an asshole for a while, and it just keeps switching around. We all get a turn.”

Kidding aside, though, one gets the sense that it’s this family dynamic that has allowed Jet to persevere where other groups have faltered, to adapt and grow rather than giving up.

“To be honest, there’s really nothing that we haven’t had to face as a band together,” Chris said. “We’ve had massive success and we’ve had disappointment. You see what it’s like to be loved and to be hated, and you just get to a point in your career and your life … where you just go, fuck ‘em all. Just make your music, basically.”

“The music always brings you back,” he went on. “It’s like a good friend that you always have no matter what happens in your life. That’s what’s so precious about rock ‘n’ roll in particular, I think. There’s a lot of great genres and there’s a lot of things that I enjoy, but nothing really has that personal, close feeling that rock ‘n’ roll has. It really is just like your best friend, because it never lets you down.”

But with recent release of her second album, “The Redemption,” Hogan is looking to change all that. In doing so, she faces the unenviable struggle of wanting to detach herself from her personal problems and focus on her music career, despite knowing that those family struggles may be the primary reason people are interested in her songs to begin with.

“I’m working now towards just being able to hold my own and have respect from people,” Hogan said in a recent interview. “It’s not that I want to be swarmed with paparazzi all the time for the attention. … I’m not just, you know, Paris Hilton trying to get out there.”

“The Redemption” is, for the most part, a standard autotune-heavy R&B/pop record whose songs would seamlessly blend into the playlist on any Top 40 station around the country. Single “Hey Yo” is catchy enough, as is “Ruff Me Up,” featuring rapper Flo Rida, but the latter is also a blatant, nearly plagiaristic ripoff of Britney Spears’ “Womanizer.”

In case anyone needed a refresher, the minute-long “Intro” kicks off the album with a jarring mishmash of news clips highlighting the tumultuous past two years in Brooke Hogan’s life — from her brother’s jail time as a result of a car accident that left a family friend nearly brain dead, to her parents’ messy divorce, and more recently, public trash-talking episodes between Brooke and her mother, Linda.

“I’ve been through so much crap these past two years, and life has been really hard,” she said. “I’ve kept my head up, (but) it’s been tough. I feel like now … I’m surrounded by people that love me. Even though it’s a small, select group, I really have true friends and I’m really just happy. I love where I’m at in life, so I feel like God is redeeming me. This is my redemption.” (That religious theme is reinforced both on the album’s much-maligned cover art, which features Brooke as a cartoonish, muscular angel.)

The sex kitten image that Hogan projects on other songs like “BeDDable” and the sizzling, sultry kickoff track “Strip” (“I wanna see you strip for me / Take it off, off honey / Wanna see your body”) seems inconsistent with her portrayal as a slightly naïve, girl next door type on her VH1 reality show, “Brooke Knows Best” — a notion she immediately brushes off.

“I’m not saying that the reality show is fake or real,” she hedges. “It is whatever it is. But, whatever you see on TV is like one percent of my life.”

Of “Strip,” in particular, she remarks: “Everybody wants to, you know, have sex and be sexy and whatever.”

Maybe so, but the dichotomy between her TV and album personas unfortunately makes both seem less than genuine.

More PG-13 is “Falling,” the formulaic collaboration between Hogan and her boyfriend, rapper Stack$. Although the pair try to keep their relationship private, Hogan said the song is one of her proudest moments on the record.

“It’s definitely a turn-on to see your boyfriend or girlfriend … when they put on their business hat,” she said. “It’s fun for us. Instead of going to the movies, we go into the studio.”

In spite of her pointed distancing of herself from Paris Hilton, Hogan recognizes that there are detractors who say she, too, is trying to parlay her family name into a career in showbiz. But she swiftly and confidently dismisses her critics, quickly pointing out that she’s a professionally trained singer and pianist, who counts Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and Stevie Wonder among her musical influences.

“There’s a lot of kids that just think that they can be famous or whatever because their family’s famous,” she said. “(Performing) was really just something that I loved to do. I love music. And maybe my dad’s entertainment genes are passed down through me, but look at Goldie Hawn and (her daughter) Kate Hudson. Sometimes it runs in the blood. … It’s just the nature of the beast. You can’t really hate on it.”

Growing up in the Tampa suburb of Clearwater, Florida, Brooke and her younger brother Nick were generally kept out of the spotlight by their parents. In fact, ‘Hulk’ and Linda Hogan were quite the opposite of stage parents, shielding Brooke and Nick from the spotlight and resisting the urge to permanently relocate to Hollywood. (Incidentally, I attended the same Catholic elementary school as the siblings, a few grades ahead of them, back when they were known as the Bolleas, their father’s given name, so as not to attract unwanted attention.)

“My parents gave us a really normal childhood,” Hogan confirmed, adding that it was her own decision to pursue a career in music. “We were literally (in a) one-mile radius between our house and school. And anything we did on the weekends was with our friends from school. It was really just very secluded. Of course we traveled and stuff like that, but they didn’t make it, like, a big deal. They didn’t ever really over-explain what red carpets were, paparazzi and stuff like that. We were just kind of clueless. We just kind of went along for the ride.’

CBOF are taking on teen issues this time around with a sensibility and realism that you won’t find watching Hannah Montana. “Gym Class Haze” and “Super Teen” tackle day to day school dramas and insecurities we all have experienced. The girls even take on stereotypes and contemporary issues with “Barbie Eat a Sandwich” and “Met You On Myspace” showing they can have a sense of humor and still hold down a conversation at the adults’ table.

The video for their first single, “Everybody Else,” can be seen here, and CBOF can be caught this summer at Kidzapalooza in Chicago on August 8 and 9.

Boston is embracing one such singer-songwriter, Emilie Mover, tonight. Mover, who will be performing in Cambridge at Toad this evening, has been gaining widespread recognition by following in Ingrid Michealson’s footsteps and being featured on “Grey’s Anatomy” twice this past season — once in October and again in April. One of Mover’s songs will also appear in an upcoming episode of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s show “Ghost Whisperer.”

“It’s gotten the songs out there to a wider audience which is really [great]. I write two kinds of songs. One is more acoustic guitar-based and the other is more [poppy]. Those songs are the ones that get played [on the radio] obviously. Being on ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ people get to hear all the types of songs that I have. The exposure obviously is the thing with those shows,” said Mover in a phone interview with Blast.

As much as being featured on popular network television shows has done for Mover she confessed to Blast that she thinks it would be awesome to be featured on HBO’s polygamy drama “Big Love” or in a movie done by one of her favorite directors.

“I like the music on Big Love, but they play a lot of old music. I see a lot of movies and think, ‘That’s awesome’. You know the movies with the independent music, where the music is part of the scene. [I think it’d be awesome to be in a] Wes Anderson movie,” she said.

Mover first started playing music in Toronto when she was 15, even though she grew up significantly influenced by her jazz musician father.

“My dad was a jazz musician and his whole life was just music. I got to hear a lot of amazing music from a really early age. At first I started singing and performing just jazz standards. I just had all these jazz standards at the core of my being,” Mover said.

It wasn’t until her teen years that Mover began listening to pop music and developing her own style from that. She maintains that jazz musicians and the music she listened to while spending time with her father as a child are still huge influences on her though, even if they aren’t immediately apparent in her sound.

“It’s just funny because when you have this soft singer-songwriter type of thing going I think that there is a common misconception that their influences are just other soft singer-songwriters. I don’t think it’s necessarily that way for lots of them,” Mover explained. “Influences for me are [people like] Stevie Wonder. I’d have to say for me that in terms of songwriting he’s the guy I look to most. It doesn’t even have to come across that way in my songs, it comes across completely differently. I think the bottom line is the love of the craft of songs.”

It is with that love of the craft of songs that Mover began playing her music in the bars of Toronto. While playing those shows Mover was connected with Sync Music, a synchronization company that put her music in commercials and eventually put her in touch with “Grey’s Anatomy.”

The songs featured on the show come from Mover’s first full-length record, “Good Shake, Nice Gloves”. The album for Mover became one half break-up soundtrack and the other half depicting life after heartbreak.

“The songs are really break up songs, on the first side. And then the second side is more after I’d gotten over it and was in a softer place. They’re more upbeat songs. I think it’s a good mixture because half of it is dead kind of music and the other half is waking up in the morning music. I really like that contrast,” she said.

Mover’s show at Toad tonight is currently the last scheduled gig before she heads back into the studio in July to begin recording new songs.

“Crossing the Rubicon,” the latest offering from Swedish synth-pop quintet The Sounds, borrows its name from a phrase meaning “to pass a point of no return.” Historically, it refers to the act of war Julius Caesar committed by crossing the Rubicon River in Northern Italy in 49 B.C.

So it would be perfectly understandable to wonder if the band is exploring new sonic territory on their latest offering, which hits shelves June 2. What’s ironic, though, given this context, is that the strongest moments on “Crossing the Rubicon” — and there are many — emerge when the band sticks to the winning formula it honed on 2006’s “Dying to Say This to You” — danceable guitar riffs and synthesizers on top of upbeat rhythms.

“Crossing the Rubicon” starts on a high note, with the infectious, guitar-heavy first single “No One Sleeps When I’m Awake,” and continues with a handful of equally catchy tunes, including the New Wave-y “4 Songs and a Fight” and delightfully bizarre Blondie homage “Beatbox.”

Unfortunately though, the 12-song offering loses some of its steam in its final third, with the later songs failing to reach the extremely high bar set by the first ones. The title track, which sounds like gothic monks singing over an excerpt from a dramatic movie score, marks the middle point, and its placement is jarring to say the least — especially since it’s book-ended by the accessible “Midnight Sun” and “Underground.”

The Sounds will spend much of the summer on the road, having landed the opening slot on several dates of No Doubt’s reunion tour. Like the headliner, they are anchored by a powerful frontwoman — sassy singer Maja Ivarsson, whose vocals range from pained to empowered — backed by male supporting musicians who tend to stay in the background.

Their position on the No Doubt tour, combined with the band’s decision to stream “Crossing the Rubicon” in its entirety nearly a week before its official release date, indicate the band is trying to expand its American fanbase. Their radio-friendly pop is likely to win over some early-arriving audience members.

Aside from breeding the new and old voices of hardcore, the area has provided a place for touring out-of-state hardcore bands to find a welcoming scene and a new crowd of fans. Most recently the scene saw Canadian-based Protest the Hero on their first headlining tour of the States. The band’s combination of screaming lyrics, high intensity speed and wailing tap solos was received well by the Worcester Palladium crowd on May 9 and made the band feel right at home.

Blast was able to catch up with the band’s bassist Arif Mirabdolbaghi on the last leg of the band’s tour.

“We’ve come to Worcester a few times when we were opening for other bands,” said Mirabdolbaghi. “We have a lot of friends and fans in the area. You can really feel the legacy of aggressive music in the crowds and venues.”

Protest the Hero began their musical carrier in the small suburban town of Whitby, Ontario in 1999. It was there that lead singer Rody Walker, guitarists Tim Millar and Luke Hoskin, drummer Moe Carlson and Mirabdolbaghi started playing together at the age of 13.

“We where really just some bored suburban kids when we started,” said Mirabdolbaghi. “We had no real intentions to tour the U.S, or anywhere else for that matter.”

The band stuck it out however through the next five years, touring Canada and recording independently. Their efforts paid off in 2006 when they were picked up by Vagrant Records, with whom they made their first full length record “Keiza.” From there they went on several supporting tours with other major names in the hardcore music scene such as All That Remains, Bullet for my Valentine and heavy metal stars Dragon Force.

“What’s good about us is that we fit into a lot of different tours in a lot of different ways,” said Mirabdolbaghi. “We’ve been the heaviest band on a tour and then we’ve been the pussiest.”

Most recently the band has put out their second full length album “Fortress,” which is the focus of the newest tour. They have also gained some exposure through electronic media being features in “Guitar Hero II” and the soundtrack of “NHL ‘09.” Once they are finished with the current leg of their U.S tour, the band plans to head back north to their homeland in order to rest up after the stresses of the new album and tour.

“We’re at the end of the album’s cycle now,” said Mirabdolbaghi. “We’re going to go home and write some new material and possibly do some recording.”

Through out all the bands touring and recording, their goal is not to break into the mainstream lexicon, but rather show people who are interested in aggressive music what they bring to the table.

“We’re living in the days of iPod shuffle culture,” said Mirabdolbaghi. “People today have more access to different types of music than anyone in history of music has ever had. Yet people seem to be more closed-minded than ever before. We want to people to give us a try; even if they don’t think that they’ll like us we at least want people to give it a chance.”

For more information on Protest the Hero go to www.myspace.com/protestthehero.

Although many people initially thought the group was a joke promotional tool for the film, the boys and gal of Cobra Starship are about to release their third full length album this summer and are currently playing main support for Fall Out Boy on the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, also featuring All Time Low, Metro Station and Hey Monday.

Blast caught up with Cobra bassist Alex Suarez, drummer Nate Novarro, and Hidden in Plain View’s former drummer and Cobra comrade Spencer Peterson in their dressing room before the show on the 19th stop of the Believers tour at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell.

“We’ve just been really happy since Spencer came out here to join us,” said Novarro. “It’s like the Dow national average went up 7 points. Before that it was at an all time low.”

Everyone shares a laugh before Suarez elaborates, “there are just so many moments where we say, ‘That was awesome. Remember last night? That was awesome.’ There are like 20 of those a day.”

To no surprise, the Cobra attitude is a lighthearted one which could lead some to think that “believers never die” may work as some sort of mantra for the band considering the obstacles they have encountered over the last few months.

They ended a full summer run on last year’s Warped Tour to be confronted with a could-be-devastating diagnosis of lead singer Gabe Saporta’s voice. Because of lumps that formed on his vocal chords, Saporta was sentenced to vocal rest and surgery, but that would impede the upcoming headlining US tour for the New York-based quintet. While the Starship delayed recording of the new record and postponed UK dates, they went ahead with the Sassy Back Tour.

Saporta bumped up his surgery to December and spent the holidays recovering before going to work on the new album at the end of January, though there was some worry if he would be up for the Fall Out Boy tour.

“We just kind of hung out and waited for him to be ready to go,” said Suarez. “There wasn’t really anything else we could do.”

Now the band takes a humorous take on the situation by making skits about Saporta’s surgery for their new weekly webisodes on cobracam.tv.

“Our friend Jack the Camera Guy was available and we invited him out on tour. He just comes out with all these great ideas because he’s such a genius,” said Suarez.

A new webisode will premiere every Monday until the new album is released. The previous escapades have shown backstage footage of the tour and alleged album title meetings.

“Someone starts off, says ‘We should do this,’ and then everyone just throws in there and it all comes together,” Novarro said, explaining how the group drafts ideas for the skits.

The group’s latest episode depicts the after-effects of writing part of the new album in the mountains of Pennsylvania on Novarro’s psyche. The trip was an opportunity for the band to get away from it all and write some new material, but became another filming expedition when the  band set up a web cam to film their songwriting process.

“There was lots of snow and red wine. White powder and red wine. Cobra cam. Sweet jams were written up there. We wrote a rap song,” said Suarez of the experience.

The mountain session and later recording in New York City did lead to the first song off the record being released to the Cobra Myspace — “Pete Wentz Is The Only Reason We’re Famous.” The title hints that Cobra is up to their usual celebrity trash-talking style, but not afraid to make themselves the target as well, considering Wentz is the one who signed them to his Decaydance label and they are now opening for him during the BND tour.

“I think we make fun of ourselves more, but ourselves as celebrities,” said Suarez. “So I guess you could say we’re still making fun of celebrities.”

As well as making reference to 80’s Kung Fu supervillain Bruce Leroy, the glowing Last Dragon in the new track, Saporta also gets a little dirty in the first verse when he proclaims, “you can rise to the top/but you can’t ride on my cock.”

The cavalier line took many fans by surprise on the first listen but Suarez and Novarro didn’t seem phased when asked if more of the same bluntness would be found on the record.

“Expect a lot of dick and a lot of cock,” said Suarez.

“Metaphorically, of course,” added Novarro.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of hinting about cock,” concluded Suarez before going into a traumatic story from his childhood in which he was witness to two elephants mating but confused the male elephant parts as a second trunk.

“We went to this, like, drive-in zoo , (Lion Park Safari). I’m just looking out the window, ‘Hey ma, why does that elephant have two trunks?’ and then they started doing it. Have you ever seen two elephants doing it? Not pretty,” Suarez regaled.

Of course with the staggering amount of musical artists on Myspace, it could be considered impossible for anyone to really make a name for themselves amongst the masses. Apparently Adam Young – known more widely to his followers as Owl City – didn’t get that memo and went for it anyway. Over 20,000 digital albums and more than 200,000 tracks later, Owl City is set to embark on their first headlining tour across the US (even though his first live gigs were this past February – both sold out).

The new tour includes stops at Bamboozle, Sasquatch and Summerfest and even a few dates with Christian rockers Relient K.

The time spent on the road is to help promote Owl City’s upcoming release “Ocean Eyes” which will hit iTunes on September 1. It kicks off on today in Boston where Owl City will be playing at Café 939.

Young took a little time out on his way to Bamboozle this weekend to discuss internet popularity, the tour and “Ocean Eyes”.

“I honestly have no idea how I account for this kind of success. I did really poorly in the accounting class I took in high school, and none of my friends are licensed accountants so I guess I don’t really have a good answer,” Young said in his e-mail reply, “Regardless, I’m excited beyond reason about this. It’s a truly wonderful feeling to fall asleep at night knowing there are a few people out there who appreciate the art I pour so much of myself into. It’s an incredible feeling to say the least.”

Owl City has charted multiple times on the iTunes top ten electronic charts alongside Daft Punk, M.I.A. and The Postal Service. His most popular single is “Hello Seattle,” even though it turns out Young had never been able to visit the Emerald City until last month.

“Seattle was enchanting. It certainly lived up to my expectations… and then some. I had never tried tartar sauce with french fries until I visited the Emerald City. [The experience] makes me want to live there and eat tartar sauce and fries like it’s my job,” explained Young.

Young only began playing music a few years ago but soon got into using his computer to create a more electro-pop kind of sound which has attracted the attention of more than six million visitors to his Myspace.

“I started playing music a few years ago. It was pretty fun so I started programming music a few months ago. That was even more fun. In terms of genre, electronic music just happened to get in the way so I started tapping my toes. I’m still having fun,” Young said.

All of the Owl City albums have been recorded in Young’s basement in the small town of Owatonna, Minn. Initially, Young recorded a few songs and put them online and a few devoted fans carried it from there.

“I recorded some songs, put them up online and kids spread the word. I didn’t do a thing. I really owe it all to my fans because they’ve done all the work,” said Young.

Even the planned fall release of “Ocean Eyes” was done in Young’s house but, as he explains, with more of a process: “Recording this album was the same process as recording the others, but with a bit more purpose. I also know much more now — about programming/producing/engineering, than I did while recording the first two records. ‘Ocean Eyes’ was different also because I holed up in the studio for a month, put in 12 hour days and hammered everything out all in one fell swoop.”

Young also spent some time recording four extra tracks which will be used as promotional tools for the new album.

On the first Tuesday of every month leading up to the “Ocean Eyes” release, fans will be able to purchase a new Owl City song from iTunes which will also include a chance to see him live on the summer tour. The first song, “Hot Air Balloon” will be available May 5th for downloading.

“We thought it would be a sneaky idea to start building buzz for the release of the record in September. All four songs are picked out. They will not be featured on ‘Ocean Eyes,’ but rather iTunes-only releases,” Young said.

You can check out the new single this Tuesday or go catch Owl City on any of the stops along the tour this summer. The dates are listed below.

May 5th — Café 939, Boston, MA

May 6th — North Star Bar, Philadelphia, PA

May 7th — Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY

May 9th — Jammin’ Java, Vienna, VA

May 11th — Grog Shop, Cleveland Heights, OH

May 12th — The Pike Room @ Crofoot, Pontiac, MI

May 14th — Subterranean, Chicago, IL

May 15th — Varsity Theater, Minneapolis, MN

May 23rd — Gorge Amphitheatre/Sasquatch Festival, George, WA

May 26th — Glass House, Pomona, CA*

May 27th — The Dome, Bakersfield, CA*

May 28th — The Boardwalk, Orangevale, CA*

May 29th — Indigo District, Eugene, OR*

May 30th — Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR*

May 31st — Neumo’s, Seattle, WA*

June 2nd — Knitting Factory, Spokane, WA*

June 3rd — Knitting Factory, Boise, ID*

June 4th — Murray Theatre, Salt Lake City, UT*

June 19th — Rocketown, Nashville, TN

June 20th — Vinyl, Atlanta, GA

June 22nd — The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC

June 23rd — Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh, NC

June 25th — Sonar, Baltimore, MD

June 26th — Water Street Music Hall, Rochester, NY

June 27th — The Basement, Columbus, OH

June 29th — Riverside Ballroom, Green Bay, WI

June 30th — Grandma’s Sports Garden Bar & Grill, Duluth, MN

July 1st — Cornerstone Farm, Marietta, IL

July 2nd — Granada Theatre, Lawrence, KS

July 3rd — Slowdown, Omaha, NE

July 5th — Summerfest, Milwaukee, WI

*- with Relient K

BLAST: Where did the content for The Glass Passenger come from?

ANDREW MCMAHON: Gosh, it was sort of this weird limbo period, to be honest. I was recording a lot of The Glass Passenger while I was touring everything in transit. Obviously it’s no secret that I had fallen ill around the time that Everything In Transit was finished and was coming out. So pretty much it took me several months to kind of recover from that and deal with all the things that went along with that. And then of course you know, I wanted to get back on the road and really make sure that people had heard Everything In Transit, so I started really working that record and touring tons of dates a year to support “Transit,” while kind of concurrently starting to write and record The Glass Passenger. So there was sort of this strange limbo period where I had my hands in a lot of things and was doing a lot and obviously still trying, while my body was bouncing back, I was still sort of dealing with some of the stress and trauma that goes along with, you know, having recovered and gone through what I had dealt with and getting sick, so, that’s where the content came from, in a lot of respects; that sort of inner-personal struggle of trying to find my place in the world after a pretty traumatic event and in a lot of ways trying to use the music to propel me forward and to get me past this.

BLAST: Are you going to continue writing more mature songs or do you prefer writing similar to your earlier, lighter songs?

AM: I was 17, 18 years old when I was in Something Corporate, you know. Obviously by the time we had put it on hiatus I was turning 21 and becoming an adult and all the things that go along with it. I guess mature is a word. I’ve always, since I was nine years old and started writing songs, have written songs about what I’m dealing with at that point in my life. When you’re 17, you’re writing songs about what it’s like to be in love at 17 and what’s really more relevant at 17 than love: getting into relationships and then breaking them off and the pain of that and all that stuff. Not to say that that stuff isn’t very relevant too, but obviously the approach, when you start getting older; now I’m 26, I’ll be 27 in the summer, it’s like … I write songs from the perspective of a 26 year old now, not a 16 year old. So yeah, I think I’ll continue to grow hopefully and continue to write songs that represent who I am, not songs that intentionally hearken back to some old sentiment, I guess.

BLAST: So what are the songs that you’re writing now about?

AM: The songs I’m writing now about … it’s kind of hard to say. I haven’t really gone in and recorded too much. I went into a recording session recently that was kind of groovy. We ran a bunch of old material we had an accumulated over the course of four or five years. Two of the songs very well may make a new record, but those are obviously older tracks. I think now a lot of these songs are sort of angled around love and about relationships, but I think from a very different perspective. I think that in a lot of ways about real love and what goes along with that and what goes along with you know really being committed to someone and something and sort of how that can be idealized, but sometimes that ideal isn’t always the reality and sort of trying to approach that and analyze it from that level which is sort of the first time I’ve really gotten to do that because obviously The Glass Passenger was about something very different.

BLAST: Are you experimenting with any new sounds?

AM: The sounds I find myself gravitating towards now more than ever are really rich, warm and natural sounds. I think the studio for me is always my second home if you consider I tour anywhere from six to 10 months a year. I’ll spend the remaining months in the studio, regardless of whether I’m recording for an album or just trying to work out some new material and stuff. I find myself sort of slowly gravitating away from the more rigid recording structure, not to say avoiding pro-tools all together or things like that, but I think pro-tools have created this safety net for a lot of bands and a lot of artists to not accomplish and not achieve the sounds on their own and I think my perspective, especially after having been on the road for so long, in these past few years playing with a really talented band, I think you’ll find me going into studio recording more live and recording with less effects and you know less processing and all of these things and really kind of focusing on nailing the sounds and nailing the take and really kind of making it about the magic of the take instead of spending months and months and months and month working on the song and working in the effects. I think I’m kind of getting away from that style.

BLAST: You must have had an interesting end to 2008 — you kind of got sucked into Twilight-mania.

AM: Yes I did sort of, didn’t I? (laughs)

BLAST: Tell me a little bit about working with Stephenie Meyer on the making of the “The Resolution” music video.

AM: It was one of these things where I had a friend of mine who had notified me, this is probably months before I got involved with Stephenie, that Stephenie was a fan of Jack’s Mannequin and that she had made reference to Jack’s either on her website or in the thank you’s in one of her books as being an inspiration for a character or whatever, we were on a play list or something like that. I heard this and at that point didn’t really know much about “Twilight” and while it was obviously a huge phenomenon throughout the country and probably the world and what-not, I don’t think it had quite broken the surface yet. As the months wore on, obviously I was sort of realizing how big a deal this whole thing was and about the same time we were searching for video treatments for “The Resolution” and frankly hadn’t really found one that we clicked with. It was sort of a frustrating process and I was trying to kind of sort it out and we started talking; myself and the label, we started talking about, “Is there anything we could do that would be different and cool and clever that might invigorate this process, and maybe it isn’t just going to video treatments, maybe we reach out to the musicians from another band we like or we reach out to film directors or actors or other people we know?,” that sort of thing. In that conversation, I was like, “Well you know, this woman who writes these books that have sold millions of copies is a purported fan of Jack’s Mannequin. Maybe we could reach out to her. She’s an author, I’m sure she could come up with something cool.” And then of course, it was sort of a pipe dream, I guess, in a sense. I mean I wasn’t really thinking of it on the grander scale of how huge she really was. Sure enough, we reached out, and she was like, “Sure, that sounds great,” and she sent in three treatments and we loved one of them and she ended up coming out and co-directing the video for us.

BLAST: How involved was Stephenie in the process of filming the video?

AM: It wasn’t like she was behind the camera, you know, she’s an author. There was this guy named Nobel Jones who is a director and she was on set the whole time, she obviously wrote the treatment, and she and Nobel collaborated quite a bit as far as the execution of her vision and how she wanted it to look. She was definitely there and approving shots and giving her opinion of certain shots as we went along, so she was definitely a part of the production and the directing of the video, sure.

Gillis immediately raised my confidence in the place and in the evening. She firmly shook my hand and apologized ahead of time for her cold and (therefore) “bad performance.”

I got my gin and tonic and waited for the set. There was barely any room to stand. Suddenly, the band started with the first song “Used Up” from her recent album Want Another?

So far, so good.

Gillis’s voice had a raspier sound to it because of her cold, but it seemed to work in her favor. Despite of her bad spirits and physical illness, Gillis lead a stunning performance. She rocked. The band rocked. The little house they played at was rocked. People hollered with excitement at each song.

The songs were filled with soul and her voice with power. Gillis’ sound is a mix between soul, blues and garage rock. You wouldn’t know the singer was feeling under the weather the way her voice carried through the air. I couldn’t believe how powerful she sounded.

With bassist Michelle Paulhus, guitarists Melissa Gibbs and Charles Hansen along with drummer, Bruce Caporal, Gillis’ band introduces new popularity to the co-gendered band. The throng of fans that was previously growing restless in the crowded space was now dancing and singing. One drunken guest was even shouting with the upbeat songs and swaying his lighter until realizing he was indoors.

Everyone seemed to have fun. We were really dancing our hearts out during one of her Tina Turner covers as well as her original hard-rocking songs like “Gin and Tonic.”

Andrea Gillis has been performing for 10 years and is due to release a new record soon. She opened for J. Geils and was the first band to play at the House of Blues in Boston.

If you want to hear her tunes, check out her website or MySpace.

It doesn’t seem quite so unusual when you realize this is a girl who records her music video in a ladybug costume, “just for fun.”

Born and raised in the Sunshine State — Miami to be specific — Goodrich definitely does not need to worry about Seasonal Affective Disorder. With a healthy dose of sunshine on her face most days, Rachel says the warm weather has more than slightly shaped her music. “Keeps it a bit more upbeat,” she giggled.

Goodrich’s style is not typical of the area, but really neither is any other musician’s hailing from South Beach. It’s a mix of electronic, Latin fusion, funk, and the worldly sounding artists who line Lincoln Road, where Goodrich has spent countless hours buzzing her kazoo, strumming her ukulele, and crooning about life as she knows it.

She could play music on just about anything, probably even the kitchen sink if presented the challenge. It was a literal lack of instruments that fostered this resourceful creativity.

“I had to be inventive. I used to use the stove as a snare, made the best of what I had. Then I was like ‘Wow, this sounds much better than a snare.’ I stuck with it and enjoy those sounds a lot,” she said in a recent interview with Blast. She believes her music style is “a little different.” How different? Goodrich coined her own term to describe it: “shake-a-billy.” It makes you want to move your hips and, well, shake.

As for influences, she names Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell, The Dead, and Dr. Seuss among the many.

Goodrich’s father played the guitar, and her grandmother, he piano, so there are at least a couple of musical genes in the family. Her parents fueled her musical passion by passing down numerous old-school vinyls, which she continued to collect, cherish, and idolize.

“I was introduced to (music) super young. Growing up, I thought it was part of being a child, regular, like taking piano lessons. I was like yeah I really want to play music,” she said. Rachel took action and started learning the guitar as a twelve year old. From there, she formed a few bands in high school and kept moving forward in the musical direction.

“It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I got really serious about it,” she recalled.

Goodrich left Miami for a brief academic stint in Gainesville, Fla. There, she tried her hand in the formal study of music, but found that it “stunted her growth.”

“Gainesville didn’t play a necessarily negative role,” she said, in a charmingly defensive manner. “It was just the whole small town, college party scene- it wasn’t my thing.”

Rather than going out eight nights a week to keg parties full of inebriated undergrads, Goodrich retreated to her bedroom for almost two years. There, basking in the creative silence of her own space, she “became truly acquainted with my records and music and real things and stuff.”

Goodrich returned to Miami and dabbled in jazz guitar. Despite honest intentions of continuing her studies, Rachel found herself fully immersed in the South Florida music scene. Now twenty-four years of age, her favorite place to play is Churchill’s Pub, a local joint. “It’s the best place ever. Everyone just kind of ends up there at the end of the night. Sometimes it’s just one big jam session. It’s awesome,” she said.

The past several years have been spent recording tunes in friends’ bedrooms, eventually releasing her first album, Tinker Toys, which dropped on her self-made label last October. Yellow Bear Records is the label, and Goodrich hopes to develop and grow it in time.

The story behind the name Yellow Bear is only fitting. Goodrich had been living in Gainesville at the time, hanging outside between classes (one can almost picture her: long shiny black hair, white retro sunglasses, skinny black jeans and converse sneakers– strumming the banjo) when a Native American man suddenly approached her and said “Me, I am Blue Bear. But you, you, you are Yellow Bear.”

“I thought I was hallucinating. I could have been,” said said.

While usually displaying an uninhibited and optimistic tone, Goodrich breaks her own mold in “The Black Hole,” a track with undeniably dark and downbeat undertones. Most of the album, she corrects, has dark undertones.

“It was a pretty weird moment when I wrote that song; it was a bright and sunny day but I wasn’t feeling so bright and sunny. Most of my songs are very related to events in my life. Sometimes I need an escape and it’s fun to tell a story,” Goodrich said.

What’s fun is being the listening ear to Goodrich’s many and colorful stories. In between our questions, Rachel inserted more than several “Oh mans” and “Ya knows.” It’s hard to tell if she’s an active participant or desperately reassuring herself. Either way, her manner is genuine and heartfelt.

As for a five-year plan, well, Goodrich has never even heard the phrase. Lucky her.

“I am so not aware of that term. I do live day by day. Wow! I mean, I do think it’s good to maybe set up some goals or, you know, things to look forward to- challenges and stuff. But no, I don’t plan ahead years I don’t think. No. No. I can’t even think…” and she trails off as if the here and now is all that is relevant.

A self-proclaimed “thinker,” Goodrich really does enjoy life — sudoku and good food among her many pleasures. The highlight of her most recent gig at the Heineken Transatlantic Music Festival was the spicy Jamaican food a fellow performer dished out.

 

As for all of that thinking, “It’s ok, but not great always. Either I am really excited and enjoying everything, or I am totally having an anxiety attack,” she said.

This sentiment seems all too familiar in the artist’s persona. Truly gifted musicians are, more often than not, conflicted, in one way or another. For Goodrich, the tedious tasks in life bring her down — like folding creases in sweaters at an old retail job, or the mixing of each individual track on her album.

No, Rachel Goodrich does not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. She is an upbeat, positive young woman with a disposition as sunny as the state she calls home. Only by delving deep into her person, her lyrics, and her tone can one begin to sense what may be found beneath the sunny exterior- conflict, struggle, and thought. It is a rare bunch, however, which is so blessed and able to turn such complex talent into such beautiful music.

Listen for yourself. Buy Tinker Toys, and listen to every single word on every single track. You too will become one of Rachel Goodrich’s newest fans. You may even find yourself picking up a set of spoons and trying to make your own kind of music.

So what would she be doing if music weren’t an option? Goodrich says she’d be painting or doodling. For a long time she wanted to be a cartoonist, and was encouraged by her grandmother in that pursuit. “So for now I do both. If it’s not music, it’s art,” she said.

A moment passes and she nonchalantly adds, “or maybe I’d be a tollbooth collector or something.”

Honeyhoney recently spent a couple minutes with Blast before their Boston show at the Paradise Lounge supporting Rocco DeLuca to talk about their debut album “First Rodeo,” tour and rock siblings.

“This tour has been so much fun because we’re playing with two incredible musicians – Mike Greene and Wendy Wang. Basically they make us sound more like our record and they give us friendship,” Santo said from a booth at the top of the bar after sound check, “Playing with a full band sounds more like ‘First Rodeo.’ After this when Ben and I [tour] just the two of us it’s a little bit different of a style.”

The road has been full of bumps and bruises for the band though, including having to sit out South by Southwest because Santo became ill shortly before the Austin festival.

“That was a pretty depressing moment for me because I didn’t even get to see a show let alone play a show. I was just deathly ill,” Santo said.

Jaffe added, “At least every tour I’ve been on has been like a roller coaster. It’s very cyclical. Suzanne got sick for a little while and we had to cancel a bunch of shows. It’s a good time if it only sucks 30 percent of [the tour].”

After the DeLuca tour honeyhoney will immediately be hitting the road with Gavin DeGraw. All of the work on the road is to support “First Rodeo,” the duo’s debut album that came out last November on Ironworks records. The record’s framework is a series of stories written by Santo and Jaffe together and separately before recording the LP.

“I like to try and be as creative as possible. Generally it comes from imagery, describing a setting or a specific time. Sort of cinematic view, I like to pretend I’m in a movie and just describe little vignettes,” Jaffe said.

Santo picked up right where he left off: “I actually get a little insecure about having a story be too specific when I’m writing a song. It’s sometimes a little more fun, more fulfilling if I add more fantasy to the story. At the same time I don’t feel like we have a specific process when we’re writing. It changes every time.”

Stories are not the only things that inspire honeyhoney. Jaffe and Santo are also huge fans of Tenacious D, the rock duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass.

“They are like our rock soul siblings!” exclaimed Santo but Jaffe corrected, “Except they have no idea we exist. What I love about them, first of all the music on any level is amazing. It doesn’t take itself seriously. It just has a lot of things I like about music and they’re hilarious.”

The hilarity is definitely something honeyhoney tries to include in their mixture, which becomes obvious when Santo tries to open the top of her beer with a water bottle cap but fails after several attempts. Eventually a bottle opener is found and the duo start making plans to get dressed for the show. Before they leave Santo leans across the table and answers why everyone should buy in to the honeyhoney flavor as if she’s about to whisper something top secret.

With a sly smirk she says quite bluntly, “It’ll get you laid.”

Do you have a better reason not to?

“(The tour has been) great. Some really great people have been coming out. It’s been exciting to share the new record with people,” DeLuca said.

The new record was recorded in California with five-time-Grammy-winning producer Daniel Lanois, who met DeLuca at a folk show he played in L.A.

“He’s a beautiful musician and an exceptional, innovative mind. We decided we were having fun and naturally it became the record ‘Mercy.’ It was pretty organic,” said DeLuca of how his relationship with Lanois developed, “We did the record in 18 nights. (The songs) are performance pieces, basically a collection of songs I had written on the road. They are kind of like these mini-vignettes.”

“Mercy” is DeLuca’s follow up to 2006’s “I Trust You to Kill Me,” which sold over 100,000 copies. The debut album was also turned into a behind-the-scenes documentary with the same title. The documentary shows DeLuca’s travels around the world to promote the record with the help of label owners and promoters Jude Cole and Keifer Southerland (”24″). DeLuca spent a total of three years promoting the first album, using his drive to record a second album to get him through all those months on the road.

“I kept myself sane because I imagined the opportunity to make this record, ‘Mercy.’ The thought of getting another chance to make a record the way that I wanted to make it gave me some hope,” DeLuca said.

Rolling Stone and Filter magazine have both hailed DeLuca for his unique songwriting ability and instrument style. DeLuca, in a soft spoken voice, explains that he does not really have a process for writing songs – they just happen naturally.

“I’ll record conversations that I have that I feel might be meaningful. The melodies are (my) dreams. I’ll wake up humming something or something will stick. It’ll be a reoccurring thing and I’ll think, ‘Okay this needs to be workshedded and wittled down’,” DeLuca said.

Despite having been on the road for so long promoting “I Trust You to Kill Me,” DeLuca is excited to be back on tour with the new record.

“I was just excited about the opportunity to share the record with people. Maybe make some contribution that I thought was valid. That was the intention behind this record,” he said. “It’s all kind of brand new but I’m hoping its something that we can share with a lot of people.”

DeLuca claims, adjusting the fedora on his head once more, the ultimate goal is not about glory and praise but just to make his music go as far as it possibly can. “I’m going for, for this form to reach its (peak, to try) and push it to its ultimate potential. That’s it.”

She continues telling me how she got started on the path to her first record, “Fortress Round My Heart,” without pausing to acknowledge she had just opened a beer bottle in one off the most innovative ways I had ever seen: “So I had this show booked and I didn’t have a band, I just had a bunch of songs. [...] I went back to Stockholm and was like looking for musicians everywhere. So I found these guys in Stockholm, basically. [...] I told these guys it was just going to be one gig, so that’s why they said yes, but we’ve been on tour for three years.”

Ida Maria (pronounced Ee-da) made a splash on the American music scene far before she physically walked onto its shores. Her song “Keep Me Warm” was featured in the season four finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” (”Grey’s” fans out there will recognize the song from when Derek found Meredith standing outside his camper) and she recently had a big interview with Rolling Stone.

The Norwegian artist waited three years to tour in the States, but said the wait was well worth it.

“It’s like the difference between reading a book and experiencing it, because I had a very certain frame of mind of how the States were before I came here, and when I came here that all changed,” Maria said. “I’m very surprised at how open and including and positive and social Americans are. [My experience with] Americans have mostly been tourists that come into tourists shops, that are talking really loud and are acting very “American.” Everything’s big and everything’s loud and everything. But I just have a totally different view of it now. I love to be here.”

Dressed in an oversized red flannel shirt, maroon leggings and short black boots, Ida Maria took the stage at the Paradise Rock Club March 31 opening for Glasvegas, her opening joke about Italians and the Boston mob met with silence. But the second she opened up her mouth and began to sing, the audience was held in rapture by her haunting voice, especially during her song “Stella,” a song she introduced as being about “love, religion and prostitutes.”

Everything came together when Maria played her hit single, “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked.” Those unfamiliar with Maria would have missed the shared smiles between the band members when the opening chords resonated through the venue, but the second Maria screamed “I won’t mind if you take off all your clothes/Come on, take them off/’Cause I like you so much better when you’re naked,” people were dancing along and bobbing their heads; singing along as if they knew the words even though they’d never heard the song before.

“I just wrote that song because I thought somebody needed to write it. It’s like, it’s so obvious,” Maria said. “It’s fun for me to tour and sing to people every night that I would like to see them more if they were naked.”

Though no one at the Paradise took the song literally, Maria said she had experiences where so many shirts were thrown on the stage there was a “mountain” around her, and once in Dublin when a guy skipped his clothes, went straight for his shoes and threw them at her face.

“But I love it when the guys start taking off their clothes. That’s just fucking amazing. That’s the whole point of the song, you know? The point isn’t that the girls are going to get undressed, it’s that the guys are going to show their… you know,” Maria said.

On Jan. 21, it was announced that Maria had won a Norwegian Grammy for “Best Newcomer of the Year.” Maria performed “Naked” at the ceremony but had a surprise from the award presenters after her performance.

“These two most famous TV presenters came walking out totally naked on live television. Their [genitals were covered ] but I didn’t know they were going to come out naked. It was weird. Some guy sued the TV stations because of that and stuff,” Maria said. “I’m just happy someone finally took [the song] literally.”

Maria will continue to tour in the US on the West coast throughout April, though she said she has started writing music for a potential sophomore album. She said the music will cover “strange topics” very different from “Fortress Round My Heart.” “I’m not even sure if I want to make another record,” she said. “We’ll see.”

Citing influence from Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, Maria said her music is more American than British or Scandinavian.

“As a European we get a lot of culture from the States: TV, films, and music, and we’ve all grown up watching American shows and American films and listening to American artists,” she said. “But if I look at my record collections, it’s definitely more American bands than English or French.”

Maria’s signature sound is very throaty vocals with occasional pops and cracks, which ends up sounding like a toned down version of her screaming. She said the band started out rehearsing in a small venue with no mics set up so she had to scream to hear herself over the drums, bass and guitar. “When I first did shows with the full band and stuff, I just continued singing like that, so it’s a bit of a coincidence or something,” she said.

The last song of her set at the Paradise, “Oh My God,” is definitely a screamer. Even after the last strums of guitar had faded away, Maria kept yelling “Oh my god!/Oh my god!/ Oh my god!” into the microphone, but by that point in the show, the audience was completely engrossed in her performance. After she left the stage, the man sitting next to me who was there to see Glasvegas said he was in awe. He had never heard of Ida Maria before but had thought she was fantastic.

When asked what she thought set her apart from the rest of the musicians out there, Maria said, “They say I’m different. I don’t know.”

Maybe a little bit of “different” is exactly what the American music industry needs right now.

“Adult Nights” has received glowing reviews from everyone from SPIN to Rolling Stone and Billboard, but Wild Light co-frontman Timothy Kyle says there are some things that people haven’t talked about when it comes to the record.

Blast caught up with Kyle in a phone interview while he was getting ready to head in to Boston for tonight’s show to talk about the album, touring and what lies ahead for Wild Light.

“There’s some metaphysics in there. We speak in a vocabulary that comes from where we’re from. [New Hampshire] is definitely present, just in the language of the record.” Kyle said and expanded on the hardships that birthed the album.

“The songs were written over [years] before pre-production of the record. It was a time of real struggle for all of the band,” Kyle said. “[The record is about] putting yourself in the position to be extremely disappointed just going through that process really, I think that everyone goes through growing up. I think the record comes out of that. It’s about that kind of struggle.”

The struggles didn’t end for Wild Light when they finished writing the record. Their national tour was full of bumps and bruises, but at least the rumors they had cholera were false.

Apparently Kyle was responding to a college radio interviewer in Oregon Trail style about the tour when he brought up the disease, but no fatal illnesses were actually caught and no one sustained any snakebites.

“A lot of terrible things happened but nothing like that. We got robbed in Dallas. Our van broke down a couple times. What else? We had three 24 hour-plus drives. There were literally three blizzards.” Kyle said.

Despite problems along the way, Kyle said that the Tapes ‘N Tapes tour really prepared the band for what is coming next – opening for Las Vegas rockers The Killers.

Wild Light scored the gig via manager Mark Kates who pulled some strings with “old friends” in The Killers camp.

“Even he didn’t think there was a shot in hell that it would happen. It’s one of the most sought after opening slots around,” Kyle commented. “When we first got it I didn’t even really believe it. I was like “oh that’s great we’ll probably be the first of three and play a 20 minute set at 7:30 when no one is there.”

Instead, Wild Light will be a direct opener for the arena tour. They have a 45-minute set each night right before The Killers take the stage. The boys don’t really have a game plan for the tour but just to take it as it comes.

“We’ll just do our set. We’re just perfectly prepared for it,” said Kyle. “What we’ll just try to do is take advantage of the opportunity to be seen by between 10 and 15 thousand people a night and just try to rock it.”

You can catch Wild Light at Great Scott in Boston w/ Faces on Film and Arletta on April 8, 2009. Check out www.myspace.com/wildlight for more information.

With a sound that departs from your run-of-the-mill alternative, the Boston-based band features progressive hip hop beats while maintaining an alternative rock vocal style with lots of strings. Coined informally as “conscious alternative,” the fusion of unique styles from Reggae to old school Nintendo, to Rap and Rock meshes into a sound that becomes more complex with each listen.

This complexity comes from the group members’ varied backgrounds.

Margaca grew up listening to new age and ambient music. Other influences were varied, but most notably, he looked up to Dan Kenney, his childhood piano teacher who happened to be Britney Spears’ former musical director. With Kenney’s help, Margaca started his own music career 10 years ago as a rap producer with mixed results.

“I was working with kids who had a little different lifestyle than me,” Margaca said in a recent interview with Blast. “I had always loved beat reggae and rap, but some of the kids were doing things I didn’t want to be a part of.”

He ended up taking a three-year hiatus from the business only to come back to it with a passion in 2006. After refining his sound, Margaca ended up reconnecting with an old friend, Mark Foley. Mark’s background was more rock-based. Growing up, he was constantly listening to the Carpenters. Growing older, Mark has become obsessed with Gavin Rossdale and Radiohead. “I love when music has a melody mixed with a flow that you can groove to,” he said.

Together, Mark and Jason began early freestyle recordings. They recorded their first song, “Uptight,” which fused the boys’ freestyle abilities. It was at this point that Patrina Foley began to express interest in the early workings of The Camilo Project.

Patrina’s background was different still. Coming off a five-year stint with a “rootsy rock” band, Patrina brought a new dynamic to the group. Together, the trio began to record their self-titled debut album in summer 2007.

Something naturally clicked between these totally different styles. By November 2007, the group had recorded “Midnight Lover,” which proved to be the catapult for the rest of the album.

With the music video for “Midnight Lover” now completed (and another video for “Breathing” out soon), their CD on iTunes, and their music available on programs from Lastfm to Rhapsody, The Camilo Project’s hard work is starting to pay off.

The Boston-based trio features three distinct musicians with three distinct styles.

But fame and fortune isn’t necessarily the ultimate goal for Jason, Mark, and Patrina. The Camilo Project, above anything else, is striving to maintain the integrity of the music they create. Distinguishing themselves yet again, the group prides themselves on writing songs that come from personal experience, which helps them maintain a sense of soul that can seem lacking with other artists.

“Artists use the same progressions and same beats over and over again,” Margaca said. “Nobody is trying to be different anymore.”

This band really stands out. Check out their MySpace page for more info on shows and updates from this local act. You won’t be disappointed.

Before a recent An Horse show in their hometown of Brisbane, Kate Cooper, one-half of the Australian duo, was asked if she had ever been to the particular venue before.

“I had,” she said in an interview with Blast a few days later. “I used to clean the toilets there.”

An Horse’s back story is a classic indie rock fairy tale. Call it “High Fidelity” meets “Slumdog Millionaire.” The band was conceived in a now-defunct record store in downtown Brisbane, and cultivated through a series of happy accidents that allowed Cooper and her band mate, Damon Cox, to go from working minimum-wage jobs and harboring rock star fantasies to landing a record deal and touring the United States.

Their debut full-length album, “Rearrange Beds,” will be released in the States on March 17 and is already available on iTunes.

The pair met in 2005, when Cooper was hired at Skinny’s, a windowless independent record store in downtown Brisbane where Cox worked. (“We didn’t deserve to be called Skinny’s,” Cooper quips. “We seriously went to work every morning and ate doughnuts.”)

When business was slow, they spent time bonding over a shared love of music, blaring mutual favorites like Nirvana and Metallica over the store’s speakers. Both admit they were probably less than stellar employees.

“We’d get a coffee in the morning and talk about a music all day,” said Cooper, 29. “That was basically what we did.”

With both playing in their own bands — Cooper a singer/guitarist with Iron On and Cox a drummer with Intercooler and Mary Trembles — they became fast friends and regulars at each other’s shows.

They recall days spent driving around Brisbane, pretending they were famous musicians on their way to play a show for legions of adoring fans.

“I would ask Kate what city we were in,” Cox said, with an audible trace of embarrassment. “It was kind of weird.”

In late 2007, Cox asked Cooper if she would be willing to perform solo as the opening act for one of his bands’ shows.

“She said, ‘Well, why don’t you get up and play drums on a couple songs?’” he recalled. “And we, being the perfectionists that we are, had to have a few rehearsals before we could get up and play together. And we did, and it just really clicked.”

“We always had this idea in the back of our mind that maybe one day we’d like to try and write music together,” said Cox, 32. “Once it happened, it just felt really good, and it kind of went from there.”

Using Skinny’s as a rehearsal space, the duo started practicing and writing songs together regularly.

“Even though we were busy working in the record store and doing other things we still always made time for An Horse practice, even though we didn’t even have gigs,” said Cooper, who borrowed the band name from a grammatically-deficient sweatshirt she was once given.

By December, they were on a roll. On a whim, they decided to record a handful of songs with a friend in Brisbane and completed a five-song EP, with no plans to ever officially release it. But Cooper slipped a copy of the unfinished demos to Tegan and Sara Quin of indie duo Tegan & Sara, who coincidentally were playing a show in Brisbane the night they finished recording. Cooper had kept in touch with the Canadian twins after meeting them months prior when they gave an in-store performance at Skinny’s.

After hearing the EP, the Quins asked Cooper and Cox to be the opening act on their upcoming tour of the United States. To say the offer took them by surprise would be an understatement. An Horse had only played one show — an in-store performance at Skinny’s a week after they finished the EP to mark the store’s closing, with Cooper’s and Cox’s other bands rounding out the lineup. But they accepted anyway.

“We were at a point where … we still only had like seven songs or something, so we had to write some more so we’d have a full set to play,” Cox recalled.

During the “Out of Hibernation” tour in the spring of 2008, Cox and Cooper found themselves playing mid-size venues across the United States with Tegan & Sara. It paved the way for them to spend much of the second half of the year touring on their own in the U.S. and Australia, including an appearance at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York during which, Cooper said, she was “literally dying” with a bad case of the flu.

Tegan and Sara Quin continue to be An Horse’s biggest cheerleaders. Sara in particular offered feedback during the recording of “Rearrange Beds” last summer and was instrumental in the band signing with Mom & Pop, a fledgling indie label based in New York. She also devoted several weeks to doing A&R work for An Horse at the end of last year.

Despite the help they’ve gotten on the business end of things, though, Cooper and Cox say they’re not looking to expand their core lineup any time soon.

“I don’t think Damon and I ever really made a conscious decision we would start a two-piece,” Cooper said. “It was like, oh, let’s play music together, and we did. And it just fit really well and worked. … We thought it sounded great just the two of us and we didn’t need anyone else.”

Mark and Lauritsen took their newfound writing companionship and formed ‘Warship’.

“Out of the five members, Rob and I were the only two people into the same things at the time. We just kind of drifted apart from the other guys. We were the only two who had a similar vision,” Mark told Blast at a recent Harper’s Ferry show in Allston, Mass.

Still signed to Vagrant records, the duo put out their first LP, “Supply and Depend,” in November 2008. The new record featured raw, gripping, metal guitar licks supporting Mark’s screaming social conscious lyrics to create a sound plunging farther into hardcore and metal than From Autumn to Ashes ever dreamed of.

“I really like a lot of heavier [stuff],” Mark said. “I love heavier music. I think Rob writes guitar parts that just lend themselves to it. When I was putting vocals to old [From Autumn to Ashes] songs I sang a lot more because the guitar parts sort of asked for it but Rob’s really into really ‘doomy metal’.”

Touching on themes like suicide, war and age old societal issues, Mark explains that having a microphone in your hand means having an opportunity to make an impact.

“You have an opportunity to have people’s attention. It’s a responsibility to put out a positive message. You don’t necessarily have to be preachy but it’s important to use it as a tool,” he said.

Even the band’s name is an effort to create awareness with their fans. ‘Warship’ is a play on the word ‘worship’, an attempt for Mark to make people evaluate the role of religion in their own lives and in the life of society as a whole.

“I had a religious upbringing, but then in my teens the whole thing started to feel a little off,” Mark explained in a recent press release. “I feel like religion should be a personal thing, and a tool to bring people together, and have people take care of each other, and respect each other, but it’s not. It becomes a tool of segregation, a political tool, and people use it to gain power over one another, and that’s off the mark.”

While Warship wants to avoid being directly political, they do have Ralph Nader listed in their Top 8 on Myspace and admit to being skeptical about the new administration.

“We’ll see. I think this stimulus plan is never going to work. I think they have some good ideas but we’ll see how it pans out,” Mark said.

Currently, Warship is spreading social consciousness on tour. The band missed the first couple dates of their current tour with Goblin Cock due to their van breaking down in West Virginia on Super Bowl Sunday. Since re-connecting with the tour, Mark says that he enjoys being on the road again and exploring the harder sound.

BLAST: You’re on the brink of releasing your first solo album, which must provoke a lot of reflection on your career up until now. What’s the journey been like?

JD WEBB: Well the journey – it’s like the saying “the best of times, the worst of times” – it’s been amazing playing the shows that I’ve played throughout my career. So there’s been a lot of highs just from the fan reception and doing the whole live show experience. There’s been some scandal associated with my former band, so those were definitely been some low points. It’s been amazing so far, but I’m so excited now, because now I’m in control of my own music destiny and it’s all the songs that I’ve written and produced and arranged. I’m really excited about it. It’s definitely the most authentic of anything people have heard to date.

BLAST: It seems like all musicians know they want a life in music from very early on, was that the case with you?

WEBB: Yeah, in fact, I come from a very musical family. Everybody in my family sings and plays instruments, so I did my first concert when I was three years old. My mom and sisters had a group, so everyone summer we would leave Hawaii and get on a bus and my mom and my sisters would go from church to church. At 10 years old I was their drummer and would be their opening act. So I guess it’s been the only option, it’s in our blood, I can’t imagine anything else.

BLAST: As far as I’m aware, you play piano, guitar and drums. Do you have a favorite?

WEBB: Piano is my first love, so I always find myself going back to piano. But I mean, playing drums and growing up taking drum lessons – that helped me in production – but there’s nothing like sitting somewhere, just me and the piano. That to me is the high.

BLAST: Do you have any other musical talents? A hidden passion for the clarinet maybe?

WEBB: (Laughing) No, no, I would say that’s it. There are other instruments that I would love to play. I’d love to be at the place where I’m like, ‘I’d love to go and do some tuba on this song,’ and I’m able to go and pick it up. I’d love to just take another instrument and see if I can tackle that one next. Not necessarily the tuba, but just another instrument.

BLAST: Songwriting isn’t a talent every performer can claim, do you think that sets your music apart?

WEBB: Absolutely. Some people say that they’re a singer first or a songwriter first, but I think for me it really goes hand-in-hand. I’ve written music for other artists, I’ve written music for television and film, and I love the artistry and the poetry in songwriting. I think there’s an honestness that really comes through and is conveyed when as an artist you perform your own original material. Nobody can experience what I’ve experienced, so I feel like all-in-all, there’s a lot of stories that only I can tell. It gives it authenticity.

BLAST: This is a little cliche, but do you find that certain experiences give you more the write about?

WEBB: You know, it’s funny, I feel like I’m just like a sponge – I’m always people watching, I’m always kind of looking at the picture on the outside looking in. In LA I like going to the 3rd street promenade and the walk on Venice Beach because there’s so much character and so much personality. I love just getting inside people’s heads and being like, ‘Wow, I wonder what that couple’s story is’ or ‘I wonder what that girl’s story is,’ and then going and expounding on that. Also, there’s a lot of true life experiences – things that have happened to me or things that have happened to my friends that will draw inspiration. I just feel like inspiration is everywhere. I write constantly.

BLAST: Your music spans a few different genres, which isn’t something you see often, where does that come from? Do you have any particular influences, or is it just a passion for all music?

WEBB: Well, I grew up listening to gospel music and Motown and R&B, so that’s probably my first inspiration. But I had friends who were totally into the rock scene, I had friends who were totally into the Smiths and the Cure, so I think I was able to draw on all of those different things. Still, out of all of it, soul and R&B is just what I breathe.

BLAST: Do your experiences with Raze have a big impact on what you do now?

WEBB: You know, I’m sure they do, probably even more subconsciously. I think I’m really careful to watch people and look at what’s going on. Especially on the road, people can get crazy and things can get crazy as I’ve experienced from what happened in my band. I think I’m a lot more attentive.

BLAST: You’ve performed with a lot of other bands and solo artists, do any of them stand out to you?

WEBB: Of course, Michael McDonald. I’ve always been such a fan of his music. Seeing him play, and just the honesty behind his music and the fact that he plays with a full band or it could just be him at the keyboard, whatever he’s doing is amazing. And to see that he’s just as cool of a guy behind the scenes – I think that really stood out to me.

BLAST: What’s it like working as the songwriter for “Days of our Lives”?

WEBB: This week alone there were two songs on the show: one that I wrote and performed and the other that I wrote and one of the characters performed on the show. It’s great, it’s like a whole other world of writing because for me as an artist, I draw from whatever I’m feeling and go from there. This is kind of working backwards, where I’ll get a topic and it’s like, ‘OK the song needs to be about this.’ I think it’s even stretched me more as a writer because to still bring artistry into that and to keep it from being mundane. It’s been really exciting.

BLAST: You give your fans a lot of opportunities for free downloads of your music. In an industry that’s fighting a losing battle against illegal downloading, that definitely sends a message to your fans. What’s your thinking behind this?

WEBB: I feel like the fact that my fans spend time…to tell others about me and to spread the word and get involved, and even coming to shows and listening to the music, and just the excitement – I want to give back and just let them know how much I appreciate it. As they give of themselves, I want to give back. I feel like there’s a ton of music to listen to and the fact that they’ve gravitated to my music and there’s a message their that’s touched them – that in tun touches me, and I just want to let them know that I’ve got mad love for them too.

“Since Colin (Vocalist and guitar player Colin Baylen) got the PS3, we have done nothing but play ‘Nazi Zombies’ from ‘Call of Duty: World at War’,” confessed Shaun Profeta, 19, who plays guitar and sings alongside Baylen, who’s also 19. “Like literally. I wake up and I’m thinking about killing zombies. I go to sleep, and I’m thinking about killing zombies. And while I’m sleeping, I’m dreaming about killing zombies. I’m playing a show on stage, and I’m thinking about killing zombies.”

They were required to take a respite from the murder and mayhem Wednesday night as they took the stage in Allston. They tried to make a shout out to the game during their performance, but the audience dominated by girls who looked at Baylen with blank stares as he asked who had ever heard of “Nazi Zombies.”

“We’re the band where (people ask), ‘Hey, do you want to go to this chick’s house,” Baylen said, “and we’ll be like, ‘Umm, yeah, we’re actually going to this different chick’s house.”

“And we’re actually playing ‘Nazi Zombies,” Profeta confessed.

“Bands hate us,” added Mark Borst-Smith, 20, who is the bassist and keyboardist for the group.

Profeta, Baylen, Borst-Smith and drummer Brian Bolen formed A Cursive Memory when they were in seventh grade. Back then their band was called Sincerely Me and not The Vagrants, contrary to information on Wikipedia.

Baylen said the band wrote and recorded most of the songs they perform now when the band first got together six years ago.

“By the time we were seniors we had a record done, and by the time we left high school we had a record contract and we were signed to Vagrant (Records) and on tour the summer after high school,” he said.

Drummer Dillan Wheeler, 20, eventually replaced Bolen. Profeta, played drums in between Bolen’s departure and Wheeler’s arrival.

A Cursive Memory was the first band to be signed by M-Music, the music management provision of Bunim/Murray Productions — the company behind shows like “The Real World” and “The Simple Life.”

The band’s managers incorporate their singles into the various television shows produced by Bunim/Murray and then allow viewers to go to websites like MTV Overdrive to find out what the songs were. Profeta said it was a good opportunity for the band to gain recognition.

“We’ve been their first project,” Profeta said. “They put some of our music at the end of some of the TV shows and it’s like, kids will watch their favorite show and hear a song and [...] if they liked it then they will check [the band] out.”

Profeta is the younger brother of ex-Hellogoodbye drummer Chris Profeta. He said Chris’ experience with Hellogoodbye allowed A Cursive Memory to understand what type of people they should and should not gravitate towards.

A Cursive Memory’s first tour was opening for bands like Hellogoodbye, Boys Like Girls and The Rocket Summer in 2007.

“For a first tour for such a young band, that was something cool that my brother and his band helped us actually get and do and that was really cool,” said Profeta.

A Cursive Memory’s performance on Feb. 18 was their third time returning to Boston. They said though they weren’t fans of Boston sports, they enjoyed their time in Boston Wednesday. It was an abnormally warm day for this cold Boston winter, so it was almost as though the Los Angeles-based band brought a bit of California to the east coast with them.

“Respek,” A Cursive Memory’s first EP, was released in 2007. The album derives its title from an episode of “Da Ali G Show” that the band quotes as an inside joke.

Baylen said the idea for the title came when the band was trying to come up with a name for the album, and someone said, “Respek! What should we call it?” The name stuck after that.

“You’re the first person that’s ever asked or ever brought up the (reference), so that’s kind of cool,” said Profeta of the album. “Not a lot of people know that EP, either.”

Their full-length album, “Changes,” was released almost a year ago on Feb. 19, 2008.

The band said they have big plans ready following the conclusion of the tour.

“I think once we wrap up this tour, we’re going to build a spaceship,” Baylen said.

“There’s a really great recording studio on the moon,” said Profeta.

“Yeah, drums sound amazing there,” agreed Wheeler.

All joking aside, Baylen said they would definitely begin working on a new album when they conclude the tour.

“I feel like we’re all so much more focused,” said Profeta. “Before we didn’t really know what we were, what A Cursive Memory was. We’ve found sort of our niche and our sound for the next record. We’re definitely excited.”

As for the influence of the song, some of their enthusiastic gaming might find a way to leak itself onto the new record.

“(A song) about a Nazi zombie?” asked Profeta. “I’m pretty sure there’s already three of them written. There’s nothing subtle about it.”

Guitarist Rob Morris, with the help of a laptop, some software, and a bit of Velcro, can move, shake, or tilt his souped-up guitar to change its sound on the fly.

Here’s basically how it’s done (read the Globe story for full details):

Notice anything different? Photo © 2009 The Boston Globe

1. Attach the remote to the guitar: Duct tape works. Velcro is a little fancier. Don’t let it fall off on stage.

2. Make the Wiimote and computer talk: Morris runs “Bluetooth Setup Assistant” on his Mac.

3. Software: The Max/MSP multimedia suite to translate the controller’s motions into any guitar effect he wants. Besides pitch and echo, he likes the “granular synthesis” effect, which can create blips and beeps that sound like old video games.

4. Convert to audio: Plug the guitar and laptop into a PreSonus Firebox, and connect the Firebox into an…

5. Amp: Turn it on and rock out!

Vivian Darkbloom plays tonight at 7:30 as part of the Boston Music Spotlight Live series at Olivers Nightclub at the Cask ‘n Flagon. 21+. $10 at the door.

Click here to read John’s story in the Boston Globe.

It would be the only full-length album the trio made together, but the self-titled LP with songs like “Never Meant” would become staples in the underground Chicago scene. Out of the American Football ashes Kinsella created a solo project – Owen — that has forged its own place in the windy city’s indie hall of fame.

Some have gone so far as to credit Owen as being “The Inventor of the Chicago Indie Scene”, but when Kinsella talked to Blast he said the accolade was far from the truth. In fact, he suggested “The Passenger of Chicago Public Transportation” or ”The Consumer of Chicago Style Pizza” are more appropriate titles.

“There was already a thriving indie scene in Chicago, and it’s surrounding suburbs, way before I knew what ‘indie’ or ‘math rock’ was. I spent my youth going to see all these bands and trying to learn their songs.” Kinsella said, and countered that the Chicago scene made a huge impression on him rather than the other way around.

“It had a huge influence on me: musically, socially, morally, in my formative years and I definitely felt connected to it then,” he said.

After American Football disbanded, Kinsella went solo. Owen became less about musical experimentation but more about an artist finding and creating his own sound.

Still signed to Polyvinyl Records, Kinsella took the money designated to record his first album to create a home studio. Kinsella recorded all the instrumentation in the comfort of his living room and the outcome was “Owen” (2001).

While it created some buzz, it was the second album, “No Good For No One,” released the following year that secured Owen a spot in the souls of the broken hearted everywhere. Once again, Kinsella took the money arranged from his label and used it to expand his home studio and recorded the entire album there.

Lines like “You’ve got everything you came for/Warm arms, a warm bed to fall into/when you can’t get what you did out of your head” (”Nobody’s Nothing”) are propelled by Kinsella’s heartfelt voice over intricate acoustic guitar melodies. From the first album to the second, Kinsella expounded upon his lyrical technique, using each track to tell a story.

“The lyrics usually come out one slow line at a time, and after I have a few strung together that I like I figure out what the song is about. It can be as vague as ‘a night out at a bar with friends’ or as specific as ‘feeling guilty about not wanting to shake the homeless man’s hand because he smelled.’ Once the idea is formed, then I fill in the rest of the lines, trying to keep them as concise as possible while still saying what I want to say,” Kinsella explained.

Kinsella said he doesn’t start making a record with a specific theme in mind, but his albums tend to have a similar tone dependant on what he is doing or where he is in his life when he is working on the album.

Assisting with Kinsella’s own lyrical potency is his tendency to draw on literary figures. “No Good For No One Now” is decorated with references to everyone from Raymond Carver to Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway.

“Usually I’m attracted to a specific line in a story and create my own context for it. Sometimes then the actual line works its way into the song and sometimes the song exists as a reference to the sentence or book. I find myself returning to Gabriel Garcia Marquez [author of "Love in the Time of Cholera"] for inspiration. I’m a sucker for love stories and everything he writes seems to gravitate around the concept of Love,” Kinsella said.

Lyrically, Kinsella has progressively moved away from the tales of heartbreak. From “No Good for No One Now” to “I Do Perceive” (2004) to “At Home With Owen” (2006) the content becomes less about the one that got away and more of the stories of someone slowly finding their way into their own skin. Songs like “Use Your Words” and “Windows and Doorways” breathe more like messages of moving on rather than being entrenched in heartbreak.

“It’s a result of me being more comfortable with myself than I was however many years ago ‘No Good’ came out. At that time I had recently figured out how to make myself happy but I was still feeling really guilty about it, so I was always sort of conflicted. Nowadays I think I communicate better, which makes my happiness less qualified,” said Kinsella about the change.

“At Home With Owen” also became the first album where Kinsella left his mother’s house to record anything. He split the recording of the album in half, opting to do part of it still in his living room and the other in a professional studio, which allowed him more options. In the end, “At Home” has a much more filled out sound than the previous Owen records. The use of more guitar and bass gives the album more of a full band feeling, but Kinsella says he’s happy with the final outcome.

“I’m definitely more comfortable recording at home for a number of reasons – I can do as many takes as I want without feeling like I’m wasting someone else’s time. I’m generally uncomfortable singing in front of anyone else. I can not put pants on that day if I don’t want to. I can take breaks if I get frustrated without feeling like I’m wasting money. That said, the final product that comes out of a studio makes me happier than the one that comes out of my house.” Kinsella said.

Two years since his last release, the world does not have much longer to wait to see where Kinsella ends up with the next Owen LP. Recording is slated to be complete by March with a tentative summer or early fall release date, Kinsella said. While fans can be sure to expect the same signature Owen lyrical honest intensity, some new influences in Kinsella’s life may provide view to yet another new Owen dimension.

“My wife and I are having a baby in late March and while I’m sure the birth of my daughter will inspire me in countless ways,” Kinsella said. “I can’t say for sure that’ll it’ll inspire me to continue to be a ’starving artist’.”

You dread when you hear it on the radio because you know it is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Yet when the first riffs mixed with syncopated drum beats hit your speakers and you start asking yourself, “Am I more than you bargained for yet?” rather than changing the dial, you know you’re stuck already and every few minutes until you sleep that night will be a chorus of Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down.”

Despite how you might feel about Fall Out Boy, there is no denying they have a tendency to be infectious. Now their fourth album, “Folie A Deux,” is out in stores and the first just-as-catchy single “I Don’t Care” has already hit the airwaves. Whether this latest record will go down in history as the biggest sell out of the generation or punk-emo martyrs for the masses has yet to be determined, but try and find someone who doesn’t know the words to one of their songs. Just try.

When the Chicago foursome first got together in 2001, they had no idea they’d turn out to be a tour de force of the emerging music scene. The group started when guitarist Joe Trohman and bassist Pete Wentz decided to leave their previous hardcore bands to pursue more melodic musical initiatives.

Trohman passed Wentz along to young, extreme side-burned future vocalist Patrick Stump, but the band didn’t finalize their line up with drummer Andy Hurley until they went into the studio to record their debut full length “Take This To Your Grave”.

The album was the bleeding heart soundtrack for “emo” kids everywhere, starting with a large cult-like following in small clubs in Chicago and gradually spreading outwards. The sound was rough and unpolished, but catchy. It was really the heartbreaking honesty of songwriter and band spokesperson Wentz’s lyrics that captured the attention of every teenager out there that was dissatisfied with the tragic life of suburbia and needed a more potent therapy than the Good Charlotte and Simple Plan themes blasting from the airwaves at the time.

Songs like “Grand Theft Autumn (Where Is Your Boy)” and “Dead On Arrival” with words like, “I’m willing to take my chances on the hope I forget you hate him more than you notice I wrote this for you” and “I know I’m not your favorite record but the songs you grow to like never stick at first so I’m writing you a chorus” began finding themselves on mix CDs, scribbled on notebooks, and being screamed out by kids packed like sardines into small clubs across the country.

It was only a matter of time before the Wilmette, Illinois quartet was a household (or rather chat room) name for every young person daring to call him- or herself “scene”.

Fall Out Boy spent two years touring behind “Take This To Your Grave” before returning to the studio to make its follow-up: “From Under The Cork Tree” (the title borrowed from “The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf, one of Wentz’s favorite childhood books).

Having grown up a bit from playing the local venues of downtown Chicago, “From Under the Cork Tree” came out with a much more mature sound. The guitars are tighter and overall musicianship was stepped up a notch as Stump seemed to be growing comfortably into his roll as arranger for the band.

The sophomore album was a display of growth for the boys, a snapshot of the past two years of their lives featuring appearances from hometown buddy and The Academy Is… lead singer William Beckett and a fresh out of high school Panic(!) at the Disco front man Brendon Urie. “From Under the Cork Tree” also debuted FOB’s first attempt at a slow song (”I’ve Got A Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (summer song)”) and Wentz once again delivered with lyrics that went straight to the soul of every angsty kid who had ever felt not good enough, “I took a shot and didn’t even come close at love and hope. And the poets are just the kids who didn’t make it, who never had it at all.”

1. Ida Maria

Ida Maria Borli Sivertsen is a Norwegian rocker whose smash hits “OhMyGod” and “Stella” have propelled her to sold out shows, a performance at the Glastonbury Festival, and a nomination for Best Rock/Indie Artists at the BT Digital Music Awards in 2008. Her catchy punk and alternative rock tunes will cross the pond with her January tour. Stops include U.S. appearances in L.A., Hollywood, and New York. The self-proclaimed Queen of the World’s latest single, “Better When You’re Naked” has nearly 730,000 plays on MySpace.

2. VV Brown

2009 just might be the year for foreign artists crossing over into the States’ music scene, which would explain the popularity London-based VV Brown has had with her hit single “Crying Blood.” The British artist, who was born to Caribbean parents, chose to follow her passion for music instead of attending top-notch universities such as Oxford, saying she refuses to be a “puppet of institutionalized intelligence.” The established song-writer had written top ten hits under the alias name Geeki for artists like The Pussy Cat Dolls and British pop sensation The Sugababes. VV Brown’s debut album “Traveling Like The Light” is scheduled for a May 2009 release after “Crying Blood” has left fans thirsting for more. VV Brown was nominated for the BBC’s Sound of 2009 award alongside acts like Lady Gaga and Kid Cudi. Adele was the recipient of the award in 2008.

3. Meiko

This Georgia-native singer/songwriter climbed her way to a number 35 spot on iTunes Top 100 Albums chart in 2007 without the help of a record label. In 2008, Meiko signed a deal with MySpace Records/DGC to release an album in partnership with her own indie label, Lucky Ear. She’s performed at Sundance Film Festival where Paste Magazine editor Josh Jackson declared her a “big success story” waiting to happen. Since then, her music has rocked L.A. radio stations’ playlists and the tunes have been a regular on primetime television hit series like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “One Tree Hill.” Meiko has toured with prominent female artists of her genre such as Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles, and her success has gained herself a spot at SXSW. In 2009 she will tour with Joshua Radin performing her number one iTunes folk song “Boys with Girlfriends.” Soon, you won’t be able to get her out of your head.

4. Britney Spears

As the reigning princess of pop celebrates her ten-year anniversary on the scene, it will be hard to escape her in 2009. With the highly anticipated “come back tour” and her newly released album, “The Circus Starring Britney Spears,” taking the country by storm this March, Spears’ is sure to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Whether she is successful or fails at her comeback world tour, this pop tart is sure to have you hooked with her always-catchy-choruses and feel-good dance beats.

5.  Kevin Rudolph

It seems anything Lil’ Wayne touches turns to gold, and Kevin Rudolf is no exception to that. The American singer/song-writer and record producer’s debut single “Let It Rock” reached the number five spot on the Billboard Hot 100 late in 2008 with the help of his rapper friend, Lil’ Wayne. Not much is known about Rudolf, other than a laundry list of artists he’s work with as either a producer, writer, or guitarist (Timbaland, Black Eyed Peas, Justin Timberlake, The Neptunes, to name a few), including what he looks like; he is barely visible in the music video for his first single and his MySpace hosts only photos of a Rudolf sporting oversized shades. But, the mystery seems to work in his favor; Rudolf is continuing to rock his way into 2009, and with the network of big-name hit makers this guy’s got up his sleeve, longevity should be a piece of cake.

Tour stories from San Francisco based indie-pop group Loquat sound a lot more like a haphazard family vacation with a tight budget than a trip to perform in cities around the U.S.

“We crash in the crappiest places and eat the crappiest food,” admits vocalist Kylee Swenson, an editor at Remix Magazine by day who scrapes together her vacation days to take to the road.

She affectionately refers to one of the digs of choice as “The Crime Scene Inn” for its seedy demeanor. The group has a roadie to help lug the gear – also known as a friend who won’t demand a high wage or complain much.

And to get from point A to point B, they class it up with a 15-seater van, where Swenson’s bandmates take turns sleeping so their equipment doesn’t get targeted by thugs.

Swenson skirts that duty, being the lone woman on board, but that’s about the extent of the kid glove treatment. “I’ve learned to thicken my skin a bit. These guys are tough on me,” she says.

Even the band’s sound has toughened up in recent years, since the release of their first full-length studio album in 2005, “It’s Yours to Keep.” That’s due in part to the two turbulent years that preceded their sophomore effort,”Secrets of the Sea,” released this fall on Talking House Records. The result is a bit of a biting undertone, without straying too far from the qualities that made their earlier music work, a mix of harmonies, electronically enhanced beats, and the tambour of Swenson’s Chrissie Hynde-esque vocals.

“My way of dealing with a lot of things is to basically write a song,” she says, which is how subject matters including the mortality of friends and loved ones snuck their way into so many of the band’s latest songs.

Swenson penned “In My Sleep” after the death of a longtime friend from a heroin overdose, when she kept encountering a presence in her kitchen. Swenson’s mother is a conduit for ghosts, she says, and it utterly unafraid of the supernatural. But Swenson didn’t feel she was up to the task. “I can’t handle it,” she says. “I can talk to you in my sleep.”

In the same way, “Sit Sideways” is a musical memorial to the father of a friend who recently passed away. “How do you console a friend when it’s, like, a parent?” The solution: rent two houseboats and party for three days straight. “My mom was not thrilled with that,” Swenson says. “Sometimes you need a distraction of some kind.”

But then she pauses. “I don’t want to lump myself in as ‘Loquat is the band that talks about dead people’” she laughs.

Swenson grew up in Orno, Minnesota, but the harsh climate took its toll. “I’d taken one too many insane winters scraping the shit out of the windshield,” she says, and even had to serve some detention for being late on account of the weather. So after graduation she headed for Santa Clara University, an hour south of San Francisco, to major in English and German.

Swenson spent three months post-college living in Germany and working as a maid. “While it was pretty crappy, it was insanely fun,” she says, with plenty of time to bike, play tennis, and party all night between changing dirty sheets and cleaning up after strangers.

Now she calls San Francisco home.

“It’s definitely been a bogus journey but we’re having a good time, We’re almost done. [with the tour]. We have two weeks left which is a little bittersweet,” commented bassist Adam “Sisky Business” Siska from the second floor of The Roxy, before The Academy Is…’s show in Boston, Mass on Nov 12.

The band has been touring non-stop since early this year to promote “Fast Times At Barrington High,” named after Siska and lead singer William Beckett’s former alma mater. The entire album revolves around a high school motif, but the band stresses that the record was never meant to be a “high school album.”

Upon listening to “Fast Times,” it is evident that without the high school theme, the songs have their own significant meaning that can be applied to all aspects of life. Whether it is the beginning of a complicated relationship (”After The Last Midtown Show”) or moving on from a certain experience (”The Test”), the lyrics deliberate on emotions that affect everyone even after graduation.

“I think that high school is a pretty interesting time for people, people like us, middle class American suburban kids. I think that a lot of things that I’d been through in high school have really become reoccurring trends later on in life,” said Siska. “The record certainly is not just about high school and many people think that but high school is kind of a platform, or a metaphor for the things that we are talking about, we always have been talking about — which is motivation and the drive to do something exciting”

“Fast Times at Barrington High” has become more than an album title for The Academy Is… – it’s a lifestyle. After recording the album, a third for the quintet (”Almost Here” in 2005, “Santi” in 2007), they headlined the entire Vans Warped Tour. The band spent their album release day flying to Australia for another tour with label mates Panic at the Disco and Cobra Starship. Along with a brief stint in Europe, The Academy Is… has been keeping busy with their own headlining tour this fall – The Bill and Trav’s Bogus Journey. Andrew “The Butcher” Mrotek laid down drum tracks for the entire record in a day and a half. The Academy Is… prefers a hectic schedule to make things more exciting, Siska said.

“I think when you spread [work] out for that long the aim for that focus, and that natural energy could be lost. Working quickly in the studio keeps us really spontaneous and fresh all the time. This record was definitely our favorite one to make [because it was the] the most fun,” said Siska.

The third album comes only a year after the release of their sophomore effort, “Santi,” which proved to be disappointing in record sales and caused turmoil among eagerly awaiting fans. “Santi” became the embodiment of the pressure and struggle in the band, especially after the removal of guitarist Tom Conrad right before recording.

The process of writing and making “Fast Times at Barrington High” became about regrouping and finding again the essence of The Academy Is….

“Coming back in to make the third one was back to basics. It was just like ‘Oh, we get to make another record.’ How many bands get to make three albums? For us, we had gotten back to a place where we were good enough friends that we knew what we wanted,” said Siska.

A band’s revival from a “sophomore slump” was not dependent solely on their songs and material. The Academy Is… seems to have acknowledged that from the start. They have created a unique and open relationship with the people that directly determine their livelihood – their fans. Not only do they offer meet and greets and early entry access to their fan club (Santi’s Little Helpers) but they also write blogs and post episodes of their weekly TV show – “TAI TV” – to stay in touch with thousands of kids worldwide that dedicate their time memorizing lyrics and going to shows.

“We just want to encourage our fans to be creative and have a good time. In terms of the closeness with our fans, we just think it’s exciting,” said Siska. “I think the days of the rock star, as we thought of them, are over. I think the hotel trashing days are over. We just want to have a good time, play music and have a positive relationship with our fans, and that’s that.”

There are only a few hours before the show and they still have to sound check, get dinner, and greet all of their fans before doors open. The band makes sure not to neglect their “Santi’s Little Helpers”. Even though they have less than thirty minutes, every member of the club walks away with a signature and a few precious moments with the people they have been waiting hours outside in the cold to see.

“When you spend so much time with other guys all year round it can get a little– the tension can build up and I think this time we just had a blast hanging out and playing songs. We really found who we were in the sense that we got comfortable with everything in our lives just in terms of our friendships and our relationships,” Siska adds before heading back to the bus with hopes that he’ll be able to catch a nap before the show. Despite being tired, Siska makes it obvious that The Academy Is… has no complaints about where they are, “We’re happy,”

It’s 10:05 p.m. when William says this is going to be the last song of the evening, and they were supposed to be off the stage at 10 p.m. There’s a shifty glance between Beckett and guitarist Mike Carden because they know there is a stage manager somewhere in the building having a heart attack. They were brought here to put on a show and something as trivial as a curfew is not going to stop them from delivering the screaming crowd a full set. Beckett only asks for everyone’s “eyes and ears to the front of the stage for only just one second” at the beginning of “Attention”, but it’s three minutes of chorus jubilation. It seems everyone in the building knows the words. No matter the struggles and disagreements it took, The Academy Is… is here, there’s no almost about it.

According to executive typist Derrik Abertelli, the group’s endeavors are “partly musical and partly theatrical”. Influenced by artists such as Brian Eno and 1980s German industrial percussionists Einstürzende Neubauten, BTO has taken the idea of unique percussion and turned it into a full-blown orchestra of typewriters and other office instruments like telephones.

The orchestra itself was a product of a witty quip, members say. In October 2004, founder Tim Devin’s girlfriend presented him with a children’s typewriter one night at a bar. With delight, he began typing along to the rhythm of the music being played. When the annoyed waitress demanded he stop, his joking response was, “It’s okay, ma’am; I’m the conductor for the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.”

Inspired by this retort, he later gathered a group to create their own music on typewriters, playing at small house parties. Thanks to the Somerville Art Beat festival in 2006 and coverage in the Boston Globe, the BTO’s scope of performances has expanded.

Not only does the seven-person group continue to play in small art galleries, they have also opened for Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls and appeared on the Today show, Fox & Friends, and other local media. On average, they appear every other month in various locales to positive audience turnout, according to member Jay O’Grady.

“I continued to be pleasantly surprised by the audience feedback,” he said, citing a recent outdoor show at Art Beat in Davis square that drew more than 400 people.

The two- or three- hour-long weekly practices allow members to create new songs or adapt previously written ones. All of the members have their own typewriters, thanks to audience donations and thrift store purchases.

“We like to exploit as many unique sounds as possible,” Abertelli added. “When new material is introduced we each try to develop and add to it in our own ways. It’s a pretty democratic process.”

Rehearsals certainly pay off. BTO’s appeal covers a broad spectrum of age and personality. “Older fans regard us nostalgically while younger fans appreciate the oddity,” Abertelli said.

O’Grady points out that the group seems to appeal to, “librarians, luddites, and literati” alike. ”People appreciate the audacity in what we do,” he said. “It’s not just some guy with a laptop.”

The unusual nature of BTO’s performance often yields interesting responses. Despite occasional problems, such as sound troubles in larger venues, mechanical problems with the instruments, or the anguish of lugging heavy typewriters long distances, “nothing beats” performing for an enthusiastic crowd, according to Abertelli.

“During times of self-doubt … I’ll say to myself, ‘What am I doing? This is so silly!’,” he said. “But when I find out that people are really into it, I’m more excited about the project.”

BTO will be performing at Whitehaus on January 10. The show is free  but donations are always accepted, and most of their CD recordings are available at the live venue or online.

The sophomore effort from Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes, released earlier this year, was partially recorded in Berlin and has a distinctly Euro feel, with a dark, Depeche Mode-inspired sound. It’s chock-full of dancefloor anthems like lead single “My People” and the even catchier “This Boy’s In Love,” but also offers a sampling of mood music with the trance-y instrumental “Aeons.”

The duo met at the Sydney Conservatory in the mid-‘90s and formed a band called Prop, a multi-person outfit which tended toward “instrumental, soundcheck-y” material, according to Moyes. Eventually, they abandoned the group, adopted a minimalist approach, and formed The Presets as a pair in 2002, with Hamilton handling lyrical duties, Moyes on drums, and both contributing on keyboards and programming.

“The Presets was almost a complete reaction to what we were doing before, in every way,” Moyes explained in a recent interview. “We wanted to make music that was really immediate and fun and dumb.”

After landing a record deal and releasing a series of EPs in 2003 and 2004, their first full-length album, “Beams,” hit shelves in 2005 and the twosome subsequently spent more than two years touring in support of it.

The Presets achieved superstar status in their native Australia while serving as the opening act for Daft Punk’s farewell arena tour in 2007. “Apocalypso,” debuted at #1 in their homeland and went gold in less than a week, propelled by the pulsing “My People.”

Moyes and Hamilton cite as influences the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, and Daft Punk, but say they’re trying to cultivate a unique identity among a new wave of Aussie acts that are combining pop, dance and electronic influences.

“We don’t really consider ourselves as dance music; we consider ourselves pop,” Moyes said. “(But) we’ve always found that we’ve been able to get the crowd dancing. You can’t come to our show and just sort of sit there and watch.”

This fall, the duo brought their sound to America supporting fellow Aussie electropoppers Cut Copy and found, among other things, tamer audiences than they were accustomed to, Moyes said.

“Australians yell,” he explained. “Americans actually talk to you like you’re a human being.”

Although the songs on “Beams” (which Hamilton describes as “one big hedonistic party”) tended to deal with more frivolous subject matters, Hamilton believes his maturation as a lyricist is evident on “Apocalypso.”

“I’d be bored writing songs about partying and girls,” he said.

While the songs on “Apocalypso” aren’t overtly political, fans stateside might feel drawn to The Presets for reasons other than the music’s danceability, according to Hamilton.

Australia was in the midst of a political transition when many of the tracks on “Apocalypso” were written, he noted, with the left-leaning Labor Party winning the 2007 election and seizing power from the more conservative incumbent leadership.

“I feel like America is in a sort of similar situation,” he said. “There’s always some idiot government somewhere in the world.”

Hailey, looking slightly frazzled in glasses and a ponytail, steps off the elevator clutching a Starbucks cup, and Grey follows a few minutes later, huddled in a purple hoodie.

“They’ve really packed a lot in for us today,” Hailey explains to me as she asks a concierge where she can drop off her laundry nearby.

Midway through our chat, Grey and Hailey are whisked away to approve mock-ups from a recent photo shoot, and after the interview concludes, they’re off to film a segment for Fearless TV. All the hubbub precedes a sold-out show at Manhattan’s Highline Ballroom the following night.

It’s the eve of what was supposed to be the release date for “Common Reaction,” the band’s debut full-length album. But the record was pushed back to August for reasons that remain unclear (more on that later). As a result, this spring Grey and Hailey found themselves in the unlikely position of playing a string of shows to capacity crowds who had never heard most of their material, save for a five-song EP released last November. But apparently that did nothing to dampen fans’ enthusiasm.

“Other than the fact that people are bummed out that they can’t get the record sooner, it hasn’t really had much of an effect,” Grey said.

“It’s tricky, but then we play the songs off the EP and they’re like, ‘Yeeeaaaah!’ ‘cause they know those,” Hailey added. “And I guess we’re just anxious to have that be the whole show.”

Hailey, 37, who portrays blogger/podcaster/talk show host Alice Pieszecki on Showtime’s lesbian drama “The L Word,” is best known musically as one-half of ‘90s college radio faves The Murmurs. Grey, 29, has a resume that boasts collaborations with Busta Rhymes and Dr. Dre, as well as soundtrack work for film and television. Hailey, who knew Grey as the bassist and keyboardist for L.A. indie outfit Mellowdrone (for which she’s credited as Cami Gutierrez), broached the idea of a musical partnership in the fall of 2006.

“We were complete strangers,” Hailey said. “I was looking to do music again, and Cam was in Mellowdrone. And I basically just, you know, asked my friends about her. She seemed like a cool girl and obviously had a stellar roster of people she’s worked with. So I just called her out of the blue one day and was like, ‘Hey, do you want to start a band?’”

Borrowing their name from a PJ Harvey song, the pair recorded the “I See Red” EP in Grey’s house and embarked on a mini-tour of major U.S. and European cities in late 2007. In order to fill their set times, they were forced to write new material on the road almost daily. (”We had nothing to play!” Grey stresses.) The outing included a sold-out date at London’s Shepherd’s Bush that they cite as a pivotal show in their burgeoning career.

“It just sticks out in our minds as the most exciting because it was a giant theater filled with people, and it was probably our 15th or 16th show ever,” Hailey recalled. “For us, it was a massive thrill.”

Grey, however, says being thrust in front of such large audiences from the start (thanks mostly to Hailey’s “L Word” fame) has been a “double-edged sword.” The more soft-spoken member of the duo admits that transitioning from a behind-the-scenes collaborator to frontwoman has taken some getting used to.

“I want to say it’s been seamless, but it hasn’t,” she said, laughing. “It’s been kind of difficult to just know what you’re doing immediately in front of that many people. … But I think I’m coming into it pretty well. I mean, it’s different every show. You know, there are good shows and bad shows.”

Fans in New York would probably agree. The Highline Ballroom show earlier this year was the band’s second in the city in the span of five months. A performance at Webster Hall last December was marred by sound problems and technical difficulties, and neither Hailey nor Grey appeared to be comfortable, either on stage or with the songs they were playing. But during their performance this spring, Grey demonstrated a newly-discovered commanding stage presence and Hailey sashayed behind her keyboard, openly enjoying the rebirth of her inner rock star.

It’s clear that the vast majority of Uh Huh Her’s following — for now, at least — consists of fans of “The L Word” and Hailey in particular. That said, it’s also clear that the band has bigger aspirations and hopes “Common Reaction” will nudge their music into the mainstream.

“We’re both really grateful that we have an audience to play for. … It’s every band’s dream,” Hailey pointed out, with Grey nodding beside her in agreement. “We do want to branch out, but there’s no negative to it. It’s just basically given us a springboard.”

“A launching pad for bigger and better things,” Grey added.

But while Hailey’s name is likely the big draw at this point, it’s arguably Grey that’s at the helm. In addition to handling production duties on the EP, she’s credited with lead vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, bass, guitars and programmed drums on the album. Hailey lends backing vocals and synthesizers, occasionally picking up the bass during live shows. Their writing process is collaborative both in terms of music and lyrics, they say, so recording the songs that would become “Common Reaction” revolved in part around Hailey’s shooting schedule for “The L Word.”

“It (was) different every month of how we sort of put this thing together,” Hailey said. “When I got home … we would get together and write all the time. Cam would fly up to Vancouver (where “The L Word” is filmed). I bought a computer rig up there that was exactly the same as hers so we could bring the same hard drive up there and have the same files.”
Hailey and Grey have their own theories about why the record was pushed back.

“To be honest, I just don’t think (the record label) had a really good marketing plan,” Grey said.

“We don’t officially know,” Hailey noted. “I think that the label was expecting us to make a record much like the EP, which was a really lo-fi, homemade bedroom thing that Cam did – which is amazing, and she’s a genius at it. But … it just (ended up being) a lot more polished and commercial, and I think (label executives) were like, oh, we need to set this record up properly then, and not just put it out.”

(When asked about the postponement, a spokesperson for Nettwerk Records e-mailed the following: “We are really excited about the album and believe this band is something special. So we wanted to give the music time to gain a life in the public and reach people before the release.”)

With the new release date — August 19 — coinciding with “The L Word” being in production for its sixth and final season, Hailey will once again find herself juggling two jobs later this year. (Grey, for her part, says she plans to work on solo material later this year while Hailey’s filming.)

“It’s a lot of work, and it’s straining,” Hailey says. “I have to admit, it’s hard. The hardest part is being away from home so much, because now at this point, I work on (”The L Word”) and then maybe I’m home for a couple of weeks, and then I’ll be touring. So, that’s hard. But it’s great because I’m doing two things that I absolutely love.”

Hailey’s colleagues at “The L Word” have been supportive of the band, both on and off-screen. Uh Huh Her’s sultry “Explode” was featured in an episode of the show’s fifth season earlier this year.

“It was super sweet that they put a song of ours in there,” Hailey said. “It sounded good, (but) it didn’t make any sense (in the scene).”

Grey begged to differ, pointing out that the song’s haunting “Don’t walk away” refrain was audible as a main character was preparing to fly the coop with her lover.

“Oh,” Hailey said, visibly grasping the significance for the first time. “I didn’t even get that.”

Once the show ends, Hailey said, she plans to devote herself full-time to Uh Huh Her.

“I definitely don’t want to stop acting,” she said emphatically. “But I love doing this.”

It may be a blessing in disguise that Uh Huh Her is finding its footing at the same time “The L Word” is coming to a close. Hailey and Grey are both talented musicians, and the quality of their music is respectable in its own right – good enough to warrant the attention of listeners who are unfamiliar with Hailey the actress.

Throughout “Common Reaction,” densely layered keyboards and guitars abound (”I tend to err on the side of synth,” Grey quips.) The duo recruited session musicians Brad Ackley and Jordan Medina to play guitar and drums on the album, and performed as a quartet during their spring tour, with “hired guns” Jacques Brautbar on guitar and Josh Kane on drums.

A few of the songs are products of Grey and Hailey’s prolific writing during that first tour, including rollicking lead single “Not a Love Song” (which is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page) and the title track. On the former, Grey insists, “I am not singing a love, singing a love song,” then proceeds to blow that assertion out of the water over the next 10 tracks, which are all about … well, you know.

Two songs from the “I See Red” EP – “Say So” and “Explode” – also made the final cut. (”They were standout tracks … that we wanted to kind of polish up,” Grey explains.) The album version of “Say So” doesn’t live up to its EP predecessor, but the two versions of “Explode” are nearly indistinguishable.

“I think the album will reach a different audience,” Hailey said, reiterating the band’s intent to broaden its fanbase when “Common Reaction” hits shelves. “So it’s giving those new people a chance to hear the old stuff that they never heard. It’s not like we’re re-feeding the same audience. That’s not the plan.”

The pair’s breathy vocals blend nicely together, and the album is anchored by strong harmonies, particularly on the title track and the ridiculously catchy “Covered.” Grey’s occasionally mumbled singing often renders the lyrics indecipherable, but not to a fault.

“I think our voices fit well together,” Grey said. “A lot of it was production-conscious, trying to make two voices kind of sound like one.”

“I think a lot of times people don’t know who’s singing, which is funny,” Hailey added.

The title “Common Reaction,” the ladies explain, refers to the volatile relationships that are the subject of most of their songs.

“It’s kind of like when something’s really potent,” Hailey said. “It’s almost like chemistry. It’s like two things are drawn together, and it’s a good combination, but it’s also …”

“Like a chemical reaction,” Grey chimed in. “It’s explosive.”

“It’s explosive,” Hailey concluded after a lengthy ramble. “We just thought matched sort of the theme of the album. … I think a lot of our songs are about that very thing.”

The same might be said for Hailey and Grey themselves. Self-admitted polar opposites (Grey’s a Capricorn; Hailey’s a Cancer), the pair seem to make the most of their differences. Over the course of our 40-minute interview, both munching on bagels, they often clarified each other’s thoughts and finished each other’s sentences. Apparently they’re well-practiced at this after months of writing lyrics together.

“What makes it interesting, I guess, for us as writers, is just talking about the same thing, but talking about it from two different points of view,” Hailey said. “Just on a very shallow note … I’m a real sort of happy-go-lucky kind of person.

“And I’m … ?” Grey responded, feigning insult.

“No, you’re happy as well,” Hailey backpedaled, “I’m not saying that you’re dark or moody, but you’re just … You know what I’m talking about.”

“I think I have a bit of a dark side,” Grey offered. “And she’s kind of … ”

“I don’t really have one,” Hailey interjected with a laugh. “We’re just different. I don’t know.”

“We come from two different places, and just try to make (our songs) make sense,” Grey explained. “They somehow always do.”

Common Reaction comes out on August 19.

Three years later, no one is really sure as to the real cause behind the lineup change. Rumors still float around the Internet, a predominant few claiming that Chad was inhibiting the growth of the band in one way or another.

Averi posted an announcement on their website addressing the cause for Chad’s abrupt leave: “He decided to go on an indefinite hiatus from the band with no guarantee of ever returning. His lack of commitment to the music, to us, and to all of you made a very powerful statement that his intentions were not to continue on with the band. For a long while now, Averi has been struggling to progress with a band member who did not want to be a part of the team and who was acting in a way that greatly reflected this.”

Unlike most booted band members who kick up the dust after unhappy departure, Chad remained quiet and even proud of Averi and their accomplishments. In an interview with Alternative Addiction published several months after the news broke, Chad came out with his side of the story. “As much as I’ve wanted to, I’ve intentionally avoided speaking publicly about the break out of respect for the people who have been so supportive of myself and the band for so long – despite the claim that I turned my back on everyone (which might be the most hurtful and ridiculous statement of all).”

Immediately following the break, Chad focused all of his creativity into a newly energized solo side project, recording songs that, as he puts it, needed to come out. His first solo effort, “Used To Dream,” was released in 2006 and featured 12 songs written over the past three years.

The album included a track named, “Reinvent,” which seems to be his good-natured response to the entire Averi commotion. Confident in his abilities and unafraid to take the chance to do something different, Chad reenlisted the help of friend, occasional band mate, and owner of 6media AV, Dennis Carroll, to co-produce, engineer, and mix his sophomore release, “Wake.”

There’s no question that from first listen “Wake” is an incredible improvement and grand departure from the previous album. Although Chad’s voice usually sounds flawless, it’s impossible to find a questionable note or even the slightest slip up anywhere. Every song sounds polished with the care and attention nowadays given to just hits of an album. It’s clear that Chad and his bandmates, Carroll included, cared so strongly about the creation of the music and not just the final result.

The album begins with “Blinded,” a tune so catchy I find it hard to listen to it and even have the ability to think about anything else at the same time. I’m completely absorbed by this song that I can only grin and envision how huge a response it will receive at his live show. “Blinded” is an easy comparison to the overall feel of the album—crisp, incredibly full of life, clear vocals, rich guitar, and, surprisingly hopeful. Just the titles of his solo albums show the transformation over the past three years, with this album displaying his ease and comfort transitioning into an established solo artist.

Another impressionable tune is “Awake in The Morning,” a song whose message is so universal that it’s hard to take in the first few times. Chad croons:
So If I sleep away the entire day /
Would you wake me in the morning? /
Would you think less of me if I admitted defeat? /
I’m just so tired all morning /

Chad once said in an interview that his purpose for writing was to create music that people could identify with, and understand that everyone goes through the same rough patches. He far surpasses his goal with this song, and after a while it’s hard to listen to just once.

Clutching bottles of booze after a heart-wrenching breakup in “Only We’ll Know” or finally finding the love of his life in “All I Go Looking for,” several songs do seem a little cliché, but what’s so wrong with that? Chad is a storyteller and his music is the soundtrack to our lives that are filled with basic, primal human emotion—love, sadness, and despair.

“Losing Direction” spotlights a female voice, which is a nice change to Chad’s distinct sound. The obvious hit of the album is “Wanting More,” which, like many of the other songs, demonstrates how well the band plays together. If there’s anything that is exceptional on this album it is how beautiful every harmony is.

One track in particular strays from the traditional Chad Perrone style, and it’s not that I dislike the intent to try something new, it’s just that I’m not entirely thrilled by the result. “Give In” immediately starts sounding like a well-crafted Garage Band project featuring a computerized string quartet. It’s possible that by the time this track rolls around, I’m too accustomed to the sweet sounds set up from the earlier songs that I’m too taken aback to enjoy it. By the end of it, however, I’m beginning to warm up to the layered vocals and truly wish they had chosen to feature more of them.

The record finishes strong with an ending that comes back to the atmospheric sounds at the beginning of the album, coming full circle. With a total of 15 tracks, there’s no denying that Chad Perrone and band members (Brian Packer, Steve Belleville, Max Zemanovic, & Dennis Carroll) all have incredible talent.

All established musicians and minor celebrities in the Boston music scene, it’s comforting to know that none of their work will be going unnoticed, especially as Chad pocketed a nomination for Outstanding Singer/Songwriter of the Year at the 2007 Boston Music Awards. Everyone knew to watch out for him, but “Wake” proves that this is just the beginning for this Boston musician.

Notable tracks:
“Blinded,” “Madison, “Wanting More,” “Nantucket.”

Wake is available now on iTunes, CD Baby, and can be purchased at live shows. The CD Release show is on June 20th, 2008 at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Ma. Also playing are Cahill and Tim Blane.

Well, not so much, according to singer/guitarist Sherri DuPree, who chatted with Blast from a recent tour stop in Hoboken, N.J.

“No one in Tyler gives a crap about Eisley,” DuPree said, laughing. “All the scene kids at Starbucks, they give us evil eyes, because either they hate us or they’re just, I don’t know. I think most of them just detest us. They probably just hate our music or they’re probably bummed out that we’re not, like, Taking Back Sunday or something.”

In spite of Eisley’s growing, devoted fanbase, those “scene kids” at Starbucks aren’t the only ones the group has had difficulty winning over.

The DuPrees (Sherri, 24; pianist/vocalist Stacy, 19; guitarist Chauntelle, 26; and drummer Weston, 21) first gained industry attention after performing a set at a Christian rock festival in Illinois in 2002. They later recruited their cousin Garron, now 18, to fill out the lineup after their original bassist left in search of other pursuits (”He wanted to go to college and do other things. You know, be like a real person and have, like, a real life,” Sherri explains with an audible smile).

After turning down several offers from Christian labels, the band opted to sign with Warner Bros. Records and released their debut “Room Noises” in 2005. Since then, it seems the biggest struggle for Eisley has been to shake off the “Christian rock” label that has been bestowed upon them – a death sentence, some would say, for any act trying to achieve mainstream success.

It’s not inconceivable that the band sometimes gets written off because of their wholesome image and conservative religious upbringing (one article indirectly referred to them as “that freakish Christian family from the Middle of Nowhere, Texas”). But if that’s the case, it’s a shame, since such dismissers don’t know what they’re missing. On “Combinations,” tracks like “Invasion” and “Go Away” leave no room for doubt that Eisley can hold its own with any big-name indie rock band.

Still, it seems that most critics would like to focus on anything but their music. Sherri’s whirlwind romance with Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory provided tabloid fodder last year (the couple met on the road in 2005 and, two years later, were married and divorced in the span of 10 months), as did Chauntelle’s broken engagement with Taking Back Sunday singer Adam Lazzara in January.

But those liaisons – at least, the beginnings of them – provided much of the material for “Combinations,” and for that the band and its fans can be grateful.

“The first album, we were so young, so we didn’t have a lot of life experiences to draw from,” Sherri explained. “Some of those songs I wrote when I was like 17, 18, sort of just starting out, … so a lot of it was fictional and made-up and that’s why there’s just kind of some ridiculous lyrics on there. And then, the new album, we had, you know, been in relationships and just toured a lot. It’s not as fictional, lyrically.”

“(”Room Noises”) was just kind of this mixture of songs,” she went on. “For me, it was hard to see the album as, like, a complete project. The new album, we had a lot of time off and we just wrote like 30 songs and just got to kind of hand-pick the ones that we thought were the best kind of representation of where we are now and where we were then.”

The album’s morose opener “Many Funerals,” a hard-hitting song that references parental deaths and empty caskets, showcases the band members’ growth as songwriters, both individually and collectively. DuPree describes it as a “period piece” that was influenced by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

“It’s kind of a dark song lyrically,” DuPree admits. “I was dating a guy who, at the time, he lost like four people he knew … and it really affected me, just watching how he handled it. So the song lyrically, when someone dies or leaves you, wanting to kind of blame them for it, but you know you can’t. It’s just a natural reaction.”

For the record, the DuPrees’ own parents are very much alive. Their father, Boyd, doubles as manager and routinely blogs from the road on the band’s Web site.

“It’s kind of ridiculous how involved all our family is,” Sherri said. “I couldn’t ask for a more amazing, supportive family … Everyone understands the passion, and kind of the need to fulfill that, you know, desire in your life to play music. They get it.”

The sibling shtick has drawn sometimes endearing, but more often snide, comparisons to the Partridge Family. But according to Sherri, playing music with her brother and sisters started out as merely a hobby and just naturally evolved into something more.

“In the beginning, we all helped each other out … because we were all learning to play our instruments at the same time,” she said. “It was kind of an afterthought, like, ‘Hey guys, let’s combine our instruments and play these songs that we’re writing together.’ It wasn’t something that was, like, a plan. It just kind of happened.”

But now, she says, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I can’t even imagine not being in a band with my family, just ‘cause it’s all I’ve known,” she went on. “We’ve grown up writing songs together, and we know each other so well that I just don’t know how I would function in a band where the people that were in the band with me weren’t related to me … I mean, I wouldn’t want to.”

Sherri and Stacy handle much of the songwriting duties, and their distinct preferences are nicely represented on “Combinations.” Although Sherri professes an “innate obsession” with indie bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Arcade Fire, her younger sister’s taste skews more toward classic folk.

“When (Stacy) was writing a lot of her songs she was listening to a lot of, like, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and things like that,” Sherri said. “I listen to stuff and she’s like, oh my god, come on, listen to something cool. … We both tease each other for the stuff we listen to.”

The thought of a never-ending family vacation of sorts is a terrifying prospect for many people. But for the DuPrees, teasing is as far as the sibling rivalry goes on the road, Sherri insists.

“We get along great,” she said. “We’re so close that if anyone starts to get weird about something, we’ll just kind of call each other out on it. … Everyone has their bad days, but if anyone’s feeling grouchy, they just will go in their bunk and kind of avoid everybody … The way it is, you are in close quarters, so it’s like everyone kind of understands that if you are in a bitchy mood, you just need to go hide and stay out of the way.”

DuPree quickly dismisses any notion that she and her siblings ever pined for a “normal” adolescence.

“There’s so many great things about being able to tour, I can’t even complain about it,” she said. “You get to see so much of the world and you get all these just amazing experiences and meet all these cool people. It’s like, do I want to sit in high school or do I want to tour with Coldplay? Uh … ” She chuckled at the question, apparently a no-brainer. “So, you know, it’s totally a blessing. It’s amazing and I don’t regret anything … I feel like definitely I didn’t miss out on anything.”

Even without the tepid reception from their neighbors in Tyler, it’s obvious that the members of Eisley are in no danger of letting their egos, never mind unwarranted stereotypes, overshadow their substantial talent.

“We grew up in these small towns where it’s just like, the fact that we get to this is amazing to us,” Sherri says without a trace of phoniness in her voice. “Like, every day when I wake up, I can’t believe I’m on a bus touring and playing music. It’s just ridiculous. It’s such a cool thing that I could never stop being thankful for it long enough to be like, ‘Oh, wow, I’m awesome.’ Because … I’ll never be that amazing in anyone’s eyes, so it’s just like, what’s the point? There’s no point in being an egomaniac about something that you just love doing.”

The tour:

May 1 Detroit, Mich. The Shelter
May 2 Chicago, Ill. Park West
May 3 Milwaukee, Wis. The Rave Bar
May 4 Minneapolis, Minn. Fine Line Music Cafe
May 5 Des Moines, Iowa Vaudeville Mews
May 7 Boulder, Colo. Fox Theatre & Cafe
May 8 Salt Lake City, Utah Avalon Theater
May 9 Boise, Idaho Big Easy Concert House
May 10 Portland, Ore. Wonder Ballroom
May 11 Seattle, Wash. Chop Suey
May 13 Sacramento, Calif. The Empire
May 14 San Francisco, Calif. Great American Music Hall
May 15 Los Angeles, Calif. El Rey Theatre
May 16 San Diego, Calif. House of Blues
May 17 Pomona, Calif. Glass House
May 19 Tucson, Ariz. Club Congress
May 21 Corpus Christi, Texas House of Rock
May 22 Dallas, Texas House of Blues
May 23 San Antonio, Texas Scout Bar
May 24 McAllen, Texas Cine El Rey Theatre

It wasn’t all that long ago that Canada was the veritable laughingstock of the music industry, with such smirk-inducing exports as Bryan Adams and Celine Dion.

But beginning in the late 1990s, the Great White North’s music scene began to redeem itself and now boasts some of the biggest names in indie rock and pop, including Arcade Fire, Feist and The New Pornographers.

Also riding that wave is Constantines, an Ontario-based quintet whose fourth album, “Kensington Heights,” hit shelves April 29. Singer Bryan Webb offered his thoughts on the Canadian Invasion of late during an interview before the band’s show at New York’s Mercury Lounge last month.

“It’s kind of a noticeable thing when a Canadian band gets some recognition outside of Canada,” Webb mused, pointing out that the same recognition doesn’t come for U.S. bands who find success in other countries. “We’re kind of supported and encouraged, especially ‘cause we’ve had some success in the States. It’s kind of a novel thing. But at the same time, there’s been a good run of that in Canada in the last 10 years.”

The title “Kensington Heights” is a joking reference to the band’s less-than-glamorous rehearsal space in the Kensington Market section of Toronto where much of the album was written. (”We tried to give it a little bit of panache,” Webb said with a smirk.)

Webb and the other four Constantines (guitarist/vocalist Steve Lambke, keyboardist/guitarist Will Kidman, bassist Dallas Wehrle and drummer Doug MacGregor) first crossed paths as regulars of southwestern Ontario’s punk rock scene.

“We just started as five people … playing just really loud music,” Webb explained. “That was just a scene that we were all invested in, and as we’ve gotten older, we just kind of wanted to be kind of a good rock and roll band.”

The anthemic undertones that anchor “Kensington Heights” reflect the cohesiveness the band members have fostered over the course of nine years of playing together, according to Webb.

“You develop certain ways of communicating with each other that you don’t have with other people,” he said. “When we started, it was sort of like everyone playing all at once, as loud as possible. We’re a lot more comfortable with each other now.”

The tagline often bestowed upon Constantines’ sound is “Bruce Springsteen meets Fugazi” – a description that’s bolstered throughout “Kensington Heights” by the distorted guitars and Webb’s earnest vocal delivery on songs like “Our Age” and “Brother Run Them Down,” both of which sound like vintage Boss.

“I think (the comparison’s) fair,” Webb conceded. “The thing that gets me is when people call us a blue-collar band. I just don’t know how that applies to music, you know?”

Despite Webb’s protestations, Constantines’ appeal to the working man is understandable – evidenced as much by songs like “Credit River” (opening line: “So you’ve decided to declare bankruptcy”) as by the fact that the members set up and tuned their own instruments before taking the stage at the sold-out Mercury Lounge gig.

A number of the songs on “Kensington Heights,” including the exceptional “Trans Canada,” which chugs along with a muted bassline and mumbled vocals before swelling into a crescendo are dedicated to individuals in the liner notes. “Tributes,” Webb calls them, to loved ones who are “surviving in interesting ways.”

Webb, who recently moved to Montreal from Toronto, describes the overall theme of the record as “place, especially the idea of transience being its own place” – a fitting motif for a band that’s been touring for almost a decade. That idea is best embodied, according to Webb, in “Time Can Be Overcome,” a jukebox-in-a-dive-bar type track that the singer cites as his favorite on the record.

“In that song, that idea’s applying to time and being in a particular place and time, being at a particular age,” he explained. “All of us are in our 30s, so that’s about the time that maybe nostalgia really starts creeping in … You start to look for other ideas of home or place. If you’re moving that much … you start to think about things in a different light.”

Earlier this year, home proved to be hazardous for Lambke, also a recent transplant to Montreal, who broke his hand while carrying groceries up the stairs, shortly before the band was supposed to embark on a mini-tour to showcase the new material.

“Pretty much every house in Montreal has a staircase outside that leads up to the second floor,” Webb explained. “Which is beautiful and really picturesque but it’s really dangerous, obviously, in the winter so he just slipped on the stairs. Luckily, it was only his hand, I guess. It sucked, of course, but it could have been worse.”

Although the mishap forced the band to cancel shows in New York and Toronto, they fulfilled their obligation at Austin’s SXSW festival last month, with Lambke still donning a cast. (”He’s a trooper,” Webb said.)

No strangers to the festival circuit, Constantines have shared the stage at Canadian indie showcases with bigger names like Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. But according to Webb, there’s a sense of camaraderie, not competition, among their compatriots.

“Canada is such a big physical space with few centers where you can play … (so) you tend to get to know, if you’re a touring band in Canada, all the other touring bands in Canada,” he explained. “(It’s) just a bunch of people trying to make distinctive, interesting music. We’ve been lucky to be part of really supportive scenes.”

Rachel Stolte, one third of L.A.-based trio Great Northern, has no misgivings about her band “selling out” or losing their proverbial “indie cred.” On the contrary, Stolte displays a refreshing enthusiasm as she speaks excitedly about the fact that her band’s song “Home,” off of their debut album Trading Twilight for Daylight, was featured in a Nissan commercial during the Super Bowl.

“I’m open to that, because we just need to make money,” Stolte says without hesitation, speaking backstage after Great Northern’s set at New York’s Webster Hall last month. “If we can get a song that we already wrote in a commercial and make money off of it, we’re like all about it. … I don’t want to worry about paying my rent when I get home. I want to be able to spend my time writing.”

To that end, Stolte and her songwriting (and romantic) partner Solon Bixler have literally put their money where their mouth is. They used the commercial proceeds to build a home studio and are anxious to return and record new material with drummer Davey Latter. For now, they’re laying down demos whenever they get a chance while touring as a support act for The Gutter Twins, Stolte said.

Stolte and Bixler, both of whom are in their early 30s, were friends for years before they began working together – an idea Bixler proposed off-handedly while the two were attending an Elliott Smith concert in 2003, Stolte recalled.

“He gave me all these tapes, like rough ideas on the guitar and stuff that he was working on … and he was like, ‘Do you want to sing and play piano on these?’ she explained. “We always talked about wanting to do music together, and it was just never right timing-wise.”

That night, Stolte recalled, she stayed up until 7 a.m. listening to the tapes and coming up with vocal arrangements.

“It was exactly what I needed at that moment,” she said. “It was really a pivotal night in a lot of ways. The night before, I literally wrote down, ‘What do I want in my life? I want music to come back in my life. I want all these things.’ And it was pretty amazing that literally he handed (the tapes) to me the next night … We came together in a place in our lives when we were both sort of feeling this way.”

Four years later, Stolte said, the songs that made the final cut for Trading Twilight for Daylight reflect those quarter-life crisis mentalities. She describes the album as a “vomit” of raw emotion expressed through a smorgasbord of genres.

“I think our record is a little bit all over the place,” she said. “We just got it out of our system.”

Stylistic variances aside, Trading Twilight for Daylight is unified by ethereal melodies, lush harmonies and sentimental lyrics. Stolte said she and Bixler came up with the title of the record during a trip to Mandecino, north of San Francisco.

“It was that time of day, you know, when the light is just perfect and everything feels like it’s going to be ok,” she recalled. “If we could trade the hours of daylight for that, how happy would everyone be?”

Stolte, who had been singing in bands since she the age of 16 but never played a musical instrument, began learning piano when she began collaborating with Bixler. She developed her vocal style by listening to singers like PJ Harvey.

“PJ Harvey I think taught me how to sing,” she said. “I literally would sit in my room and lock the door and try to mimic her. I don’t know that I sound like her, but I learned to kind of sing from my gut from her. She’s somebody, for me, who doesn’t always sound beautiful, but always takes risks and blows my mind.”

Many of the tracks on the album, including “Home,” address a false sense of nostalgia about childhood memories.

“As a kid, you have this mindset where you’re less judgmental. But (as you get) older, you see things maybe more clearly or overall negatively,” she said. “When you go home, you want that feeling you had when you were a kid but you can’t ever get it again, because as an adult you see things that you didn’t see as a kid.”

“Searching for home is a major theme (of the album), searching for a feeling where you feel safe,” she continued. “I think Solon and I have this common thread. We’re both searching for that feeling of home and we kind of found it in each other and in our songwriting and in music. It’s a solace for us.”

A fitting description, because songs like “City of Sleep” and “Low is a Height” evoke the feeling of being softly lulled into slumber by a gentle lullaby.

“Home,” in addition to being used in the Nissan commercial, is also featured prominently in the film “21.”

“It’s really funny because that song was not going to go on the record,” Stolte said. “We didn’t really like it.”

As much as they’ve embraced the song’s advertising appeal, Stolte said supporting their first major-label release doesn’t come without pressures.

“I feel like the music industry has changed so much,” she said. “Getting signed to a label doesn’t mean what it used to mean. They can almost fuck you more than they can help you. … Are they gonna push us so hard on people that people are gonna hate us?”

For that reason, the band members aren’t measuring their success in terms of commercial placements.

“I think a good song always speaks louder than some gimmick, some label trying to push something on people,” she said. “I think building up a real fan base who genuinely like the music and then any way you can make money and music to do that is the way to go. … We’re in a good place at the moment, because we have real fans from the beginning, when we used to play shows where there were literally nine people in the audience. And those people are still coming to our shows, and that’s fucking awesome. That’s amazing. It’s such a driving force.”

Stolte, who gushed about the nearly-completed Gutter Twins tour (”Every night, I’m glued to the stage”), said the audience enthusiasm is part of the reason she prefers life on the road.

“Being on the road is so stimulating,” Stolte explains. “You’re in a new city every day. It almost speeds up your evolution a little bit. You feel like you learn so much. … I feel way more creative. As soon as I get in the van, I’m ready to write. I feel way more creative. The hardest part is going home and adjusting to less stimulation. … It’s almost like it’s a heightened sensory overload, and then when you’re at home, everything’s flat.”

It’s both a blessing and a curse that her and Bixler’s personal relationship has evolved along with their musical partnership, Stolte said.

“We fight all the time,” she readily acknowledged. “Solon and I have a completely different songwriting process … It took us a while to kind of get to know each other’s (style).”

Stolte works out the melodies and lyrics while Bixler tackles the layering and more technical aspects of production, she said. It’s not uncommon for the pair to be up until the wee hours of the morning hammering out the minute details of tracks. (”We’re both Capricorns,” she explained. “It’s kind of like going out with yourself.”)

“In the beginning both of us were fighting to do everything,” Stolte explained. “And now we’ve kind of relinquished control over certain things. … It took us a while to get to that place.”

Now that they’ve found it, Stolte said the band is eager to return to their studio and begin recording again.

“I feel like we were totally put together for a reason,” she added. “We’ve finally figured it out.”

Do you think “Lust Lust Lust” is a departure from your previous work?
I don’t compare our albums. I don’t think of our style as being one fixed thing. It sounds a little different from some of the other stuff, but I think all our albums sound different.

Does the album have an overall theme, conceptually or musically?
It’s about the difficulties in maintaining relationships and making decisions in regard to relationships. The only thing I wanted was just, I wanted to have the album have sort of a surf feel to it because I like that. I added a lot of surf-y kind of guitar lines.

You’re based in New York, but Sharin lives in Los Angeles. How does that work as far as your songwriting goes?
I write all the songs and the songs I like, I send them over to Sharin and see if she likes them or not. And if she likes them, we’ll put them in a little folder that will go on the album. It’s very simple. It’s always been like that.

How many songs did you write for this album?
A hundred or so. I just like writing songs. I just write whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I’ll write three or four songs in a day and sometimes I won’t write anything in a month.

Do you have any favorite tracks on the record?
I have none. I like them all.

Talk about your experience at SXSW and your canceled performance.
We did 12 shows down there and that was a lot. And before that we had just come from Europe on a long tour and just did a West Coast tour, went straight down and played SXSW and then we flew right back and started an East Coast tour in Minneapolis. So at that time I think we had done something like 25 shows in a row, and we just didn’t enjoy it anymore. We just took a day off.

Did you get a chance to see any of the other artists who were performing there?
I saw Thurston Moore. And I saw MGMT. I thought (the MGMT show) was brilliant. I thought it was really good. I really like them a lot. I think they’re really entertaining.

What were some of your favorite records from 2007?
I don’t have any from last year. I rarely buy new stuff. MGMT is probably one of the newer bands I have sort of listened to. I don’t really sit at home and listen to music. It’s very rare. If I do, I put on like a classical vinyl or something. I enjoy watching movies and reading books a lot more. I have thousands of movies at home.

What are some of your favorite movies?
Hitchcock movies and (films directed by) David Lynch.

How long have you lived in America, and how do you like living here?
Seven years. I like living in New York. I think New York is really different from other towns in America. That’s why I like it. It has a certain European feel to it that I find very attractive. There are a lot of different cultures and they all seem to mix really well. There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s a great city to walk in. it’s a beautiful city. New York has everything. It’s one of my favorite towns.

Who are some of your major influences or sources of inspiration?
It’s hard to say what influences you. I think everything you hear must influence you in some way. (I gain inspiration) just through life experience, meeting people and walking around and enjoying life and not being on tour so much. There’s nothing more uninspiring than being on tour, because it’s just a bunch of shitty cold dressing rooms all over the world. So there’s really not much inspiring about that.

Your stage show is very simplistic – just two guitars and a guest drummer (Leah Shapiro) who plays a stand-up kit consisting of only a floor tom and a snare. Is that a reflection of your approach to music in general?
I like music that’s very minimal. That’s what we’ve always done. I’ve always recorded everything at home, and it’s just very simple and that’s the kind of music we really like. We have (had) two people in the band, we have (had) five people in the band. We change a lot. We change around. We don’t like to play the same all the time. We try to make it more entertaining for ourselves. This is the best tour we’ve ever done. We have a great album out and we’re selling out shows.

Do you notice any differences between touring in America and touring in Europe?
It’s pretty much the same. It’s all about traveling, a lot of down time and a lot of waiting around. The only difference is sometimes when you tour in Europe, you get to see some really nice cities like Paris and Rome and all that stuff, and then you actually want to go out and experience the town.

You’ve been quoted as saying “Lust Lust Lust” is your best work. How so?
That was probably a misquote because I never think any of our albums is our best work I really like them all equally as much because they’re very different. They’re all equally good.

“I walk through the airport with a guitar case … and like half the time, swear to God, some douchebag’ll be going, ‘Oh, you gonna play us a song? Damn, that’s a pretty big guitar for a little lady,’” a flu-stricken and audibly annoyed King said recently, chatting via phone from the Portland airport as she waited for a flight to San Francisco for her next show. (”I decided not to drive and infect everyone else in the van,” she explained.)

But while King doesn’t court fame, the brazen belittlement from gawking onlookers is beginning to get old.

“A lot of things that used to not bother me at all are kind of starting to bother me,” the feisty guitarist continued. “No one’s ever gonna know who I am at the fuckin’ airport and that’s fine (but) it feels like they’re assuming that I can’t play guitar. It sends this message of, ‘You’re an idiot and you don’t know what you’re doing.’ …. For so many years I wouldn’t give a shit, and now it’s like, ‘Would you say that to a guy? Fuck you.’”

Anyone who has heard or seen King perform knows that, at the very least, she “knows what she’s doing.” In March, the 28-year-old musician released her fourth full-length album, “Dreaming of Revenge.”

Last year, when she wasn’t recording her own album, King kept herself busy by collaborating with a number of artists including the Foo Fighters and Tegan & Sara on their 2007 releases. She also contributed music to the films “Into the Wild” and “August Rush,” and acted as a hand double in the latter.

Despite the occasional aggravations she faces, however, King said the title of her latest effort, which is taken from a quote by painter Paul Gauguin, doesn’t offer a glimpse into her psyche. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

“I take (the sentiment) to be so cynical and sort of horrible but also incredibly funny and tongue in cheek and just sort of true at times,” King explained. “I’m certainly not a vengeful person.”

A critical darling, King has noticed that enthusiasts unfailingly mention her gender in the same breath as her musical prowess- but also acknowledges that it’s a factor that sets her apart from many of her peers.

“This is a boys’ club,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re like the lone female a lot of times when you’re doing this job. … I feel like when people go, ‘She’s a great female guitarist,’ it’s like, ‘oh, she’s really good for a girl.’ When there’s too much emphasis on me being a girl, I’m like, who cares? Yeah, I’m a girl. Ok, cool. We’ve established that. I definitely don’t need people to acknowledge the fact that I have tits.”

King picked up the guitar at age 5, but initially drums were her instrument of choice.

“I thought the drums were the shit and I was gonna be a drummer, but I was always a better guitar player,” she said.

Her sense of percussion allows her to create a virtual one-woman show during her live performances, although she tours with a full band. King’s innovative playing style involves alternating between fingerpicking and strumming the strings with acrylic nails, and tapping the neck of her guitar. Her fingers fly across the fretboard, creating a mind-bogglingly manic blur.

But King nonchalantly downplays her pseudo-slap technique.

“To me, it doesn’t really seem that outlandish or weird,” she said.

King describes “Dreaming of Revenge” as being replete with “slow, simple melodies,” layered over her intricate guitar parts. The predominantly instrumental record kicks off with “Bone Chaos in the Castle,” a groovy two-and-a-half minute, perk-your-ears jam sure to capture the listener’s attention. Among the few vocal tracks thrown into the mix are catchy first single “Pull Me Out Alive” and the dreamy, folk-sounding “Life Being What It Is.” In keeping with her somnolent motif, the liner notes for “Dreaming of Revenge,” designed by Seb Jarnot, include a build-your-own mobile kit of sorts, complete with cardboard punch-outs.

King said the record brings her a step closer to cultivating her own distinctive sound.

“I write very sad music and I write sad melodies in particular,” she said. “I’m not just a ‘female guitarist.’ I’m trying really hard to become Kaki King. I want to sound like, me. It’s really, really difficult. Only a few people in their lifetime really get that, but that’s still the goal … to start playing a tune and sound like you and have people recognize it to be you and no one else. That takes a lifetime, and I think people that people know that that’s the path I’m on.”

For songs that don’t fit into that path, King has a side project called Daysleeper (”It’s a reference to the fact that I sleep all day”) with her bandmate Dan Brantigan to record occasionally improvised material and “weird, quirky, techno-y, almost dance-y track” that diverge from King’s typical fare.

Currently in the midst of a tour that runs through mid-April, King said she’s excited about presenting the new tracks on the road.

“I’m really psyched,” she said enthusiastically. “All this material is so fresh.”

“It’s tough to keep it creative though, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do,” she added. “Ultimately, I’d rather be known as like, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds like Kaki King,’ rather than ‘Oh, she’s pretty good for a girl.’”

But on the cusp of 30, she knew it was the only way to go. “All or nothing,” Wu said in a recent interview. “And it scares the crap out of me, probably almost every day.”

Switching from classical to rock wasn’t that difficult for Wu, a self-proclaimed “black sheep in the orchestra,” who grew up listening to rock instead of reserving all her time for the diligent study of traditional composers.

“I don’t try to sound classical at all,” she says. “I try to sound less nerdy, really.”

The now-31-year-old Santa Monica resident grew up playing the old masters, a violinist from the age of three who remembers the excitement of her first youth orchestra.

But even as she excelled, landing her first professional gig at the age of 17 in the orchestra pit at the Pittsburgh Opera, something was pulling her towards a less traditional path.

“I was listening to Jane’s Addiction. I was listening to Led Zeppelin,” she said. “As soon as I was old enough to really develop a strong interest in Metallica and hearing strings on Led Zeppelin, that really took over my focus.”

Wu spent time playing with the St. Louis Symphony before getting her biggest job, as a full-time tenured violinist at the Houston Symphony.

“Tenure is basically the job for life, unless the orchestra disappeared, so it was really something to give up,” Wu said. Three months paid vacation couldn’t keep her from uprooting last April and moving on to California for a career in the record business.

“It was really scary, but I’m sure now that it was the right thing.”

Of course some people thought she was “completely nuts,” for walking away from the coveted seat. “Especially players who were still striving for that job,” she says.

“My parents were supportive but skeptical, because they, maybe as all parents do, want you to have a stable situation. Maybe they’re afraid I’m going to start calling them for money again.”

Since her arrival Wu has enjoyed her first breaks playing studio sessions and, most recently, signing on for a world tour with Leonard Cohen, who’s been on sabbatical from the live show circuit for some 15 years.

“That was an amazing experience,” she said just after the audition for the songwriting legend. “It seems like everyone’s done a cover of his. He was really nice and had a certain intensity. By the end of each song I was just amazed.”

So far, Wu has wracked up gigs on American Idol, America’s Got Talent, and playing back-up for the Foo Fighters on Grammy night. That last one was courtesy of showcasing furious bowing skill in a YouTube video contest.

“The Grammys was a blast!” Wu said. “We got to rehearse with the Foo Fighters and hang out with them. It was really cool.”

The talented violinist has also done some string plucking for both Beyonce and Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child fame and for Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band.

“It’s a different language,” Wu said, of switching from the somber orchestral pieces to rock ‘n roll rhythms. Part of that is being thrust into the role of accompaniment for a lead vocalist. “If there’s already a rock band there, you should enhance that and not get in the way,” she said.

For now she’s flying solo, with no back-up plan.

“I’m sure that I imagined that I could practice and audition again for an orchestra,” she says. “You just don’t know where your next call comes from. It’s tough. Ultimately I want to be producing and writing and arranging the strings and be the force behind it,” she says.

Though there will always be the allure of the stage lights. “I really do love that.”

The Swill Merchants perform with a passion that only comes from a love of the music, taking them to a plane far above any band playing for a love of money.

The true magnitude of this can only be fully appreciated by seeing them live, beer in hand, grooving with the crowd. Before they go on, the five guys bullshit with their friends and fans, throw back some shots of Jack, and don’t appear any different from the rest of the hipsters and drinkers in the audience.

You might be able to compare their music to Modest Mouse or Rise Against. With focused expressions you don’t recognize, compared to the guys you just took a shot with five minutes ago.

The show has begun.

“We live life to realize potential and be fulfilled, live hard, and unlimited — that is what we sing about,” said bassist John St. Onge.

Never is that lifestyle more apparent than when they are on stage.

The road to forming Swill Merchants was not smoothly paved, but it has all come together to form a cohesive unit.

The light at the end of the tunnel has always been the same. “We write what we want to hear and what makes us feel how we want to feel” St. Onge said.

St. Onge met up with lead singer Rich Tardy in a band called Dorzia. Coming from there, the pair was in a quest to make music they loved, the pair left that band and set off creating one that they could pour their souls into.

Steve Fey, the band’s guitarist, brings an undeniable skill that leaves you breathless watching and listening.

Their drummer was not so easy to find, but a few years and a few people later, Bill Nacewicz adds skill and technicality that unifies the whole group.

The most recent addition to the band came in the form of a synthesizer. The role has since been expanded into a synthesizer and keyboard with Matt Silberstein manning both.

Although not one of the most noticeable aspects of their show the depth of sound that Silberstein creates cannot be denied.

With an inspired rocking sound and a live show that is sure to keep you entertained the Swill Merchants offer the music world the total package. Beyond good looks and rocking tunes, these five guys encompass a love and passion for their work.

“Of course we get nervous,” St. Onge said. “These are our emotions on display. But we only get one trip.”