Even with only a few shows under their belts, the hard rock/post hardcore band The Payback is already drawing followers. While American Vendetta was the headliner at the Entry show on Friday, January 20, The Payback, who played second to last, stole the show, drawing the largest and most responsive crowd of the night. Some fans even commented after their set that American Vendetta "would have a hard act to follow." Keep in mind; this was only their second show since becoming a band.
All veterans to the local metal and hard rock scene, you'll likely recognize the band members from their previous gigs. Josh Hoglund (bass), Moose Hitchcock (guitar) and Corey Frazee (drums) played together in The Fighting Tongs with Jordis Unga, Jay Sculth, and Jesse Johnson from 2001 to 2002. After The Fighting Tongs broke up, the trio played together again with Unga in the now departed The Liars Club. Unga left Liars Club in late 2005 to work on her first solo album with Epic Records after her success with CBS's "Rock Star: INXS."
After Unga's departure, Hoglund, Hitchcock, and Frazee said they had "no choice" but to start a new band; they had no vocalist. Cue another band reunion. Added to The Payback lineup were formers members of the defunct metal band Two Ton Crutch, Kris Wieser (guitar) and James Clark (vocals). Weiser himself had recently left the band Gingerjake where he played together with two other Two Ton Crutch members, twin brothers Eric and Joe Rotter.
The band rehearsed together for three months and wrote ten tracks before officially stepping back into the music scene. Their first show was at the Uptown Bar on Saturday, January 14. If you missed the part where Clark introduced the band as "new," you never would have guessed it judging from their impressively energetic performance. Even if loud-in-your-face rock is not necessarily what's playing on your Ipod, when the drums and the bass quiet down and Clark asks "are you trying to break my heart,"-right before he violently jumps onto the speakers, of course-you just might find yourself rocking out to the next refrain.
Describing their sound as "laser rock ... that kills people," the band hopes to have an EP available early this spring that they plan to self-produce. If you want to request a song, you better start memorizing some lyrics. The songs don't have any titles yet. Frazee said the band just calls them "new, newer, and newest."
www.myspace.com/thepayback |
