Members of the harmonic hard-rock band, "Down and Above" grew up playing music together in basements and rented out high school auditoriums in Kalispell, MT. Dave Young, guitar and vocals, and Ian Allison, bass and vocals, met first and formed a band with the best friend of drummer Zach Young. The friend was borrowing Zach's drums without even telling him; Zach kept the drums in his friend's basement. "I had no idea there was a guitar player in town," says Zach, who eventually replaced his best friend as their new drummer. Thinking back to those days, Zach jokes he looked like Dave Grohl in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video." We thought that was awesome," Ian replies.
After high school, all three friends moved to Minneapolis in 2000 and first started performing as a cover band. Taking any opportunity they could find to play, the band even opened for a few wet t-shirts contests. "This is uncomfortable. How degrading...Can I have a diet coke?" was what Ian remembers crossing his mind during those times. As they started playing their own material and found fan support, the band left the cover songs of Lynard Skynard and others behind to pursue telling their own stories. In late 2000, they released their first EP, "About the Three of You," produced out of Angel Beach Studios.
For their first full-length album, "Vena Cava," released in August 2003, the band bypassed the studio route. They purchased their own recording equipment and worked out of Dave's basement for about 8 months. "It was an amazing learning experience" says Zach, but when it came to making their next full-length album, "Anodyne," the band was ready to give up full control. "So much good can be had from having others' input," Zach adds.
That choice did not come without some reservations. "We are control freaks," Ian points out. "Basically, it comes down to we're nerds." Fortunately, the band found someone they could trust-a key to the collaborative process explains Ian-producer Matt Kirkwold, and released "Anodyne" in 2004 with strong success.
During one of their recent tours, their van broke down in Omaha, NE and they spent four days at an Ecolodge waiting for repairs. To make matters worse, when the tow truck was rigging up the van, the van started leaking gas. Dave noticed cigarettes butts on the road nearby and tried directing traffic away from the leaking gas in fears of something worse happening. "How do you say an emotion 'don't throw a cigarette or you will blow up,'" laughs Zach. "The only good thing about it is we didn't kill each other" says Dave.
What kind of bands will you see on stage with Down and Above? "Blow torch gore" says Zach. "We like to play with bands that are awesome, Dave adds. When they aren't playing with awesome blow torch bands, they focus on show trades with other bands that can help a draw a crowd. With a music style that can easily cross-over between crowds, the band is not attached to marketing themselves to only one set of fans.
"We're storytellers in a hard rock context" Ian says trying to describe their sound. Much of the lyrical content is pretty personal to the lives of the band members. "Snow Covered Crowd," a song from their upcoming EP due out this summer, is roughly based on the New Years Eve night in eleventh grade where Dave hung out with the girl who he would eventually marry.
Outside of music, the band members lead fairly ordinary lives. Both Dave and Ian are apartment caretakers. Zach works with tech support and answers people's questions about their computer problems. If you ever catch the commercial advertising travel to Sioux Falls, SD, listen closely to the voiceover. It's Dave. He describes the sound as a cross between Tony the Tiger, Army commercials, and The Killers. His piece for Michigan didn't make it though. "Michigan rejected you!" laughs Ian.
To stay up-to-date on their tour schedule and EP release news, visit their website, www.downandabove.com And, yes, they Myspace. |
