Everyone has their roots somewhere. Brothers Past are in the jam
band scene ““ just don’t call them a jam band
anymore.
The Philadelphia-based quartet creates a futuristic fusion of
rock and electronica and will be coming to The Knitting Factory
this Friday in their first tour west of the Rockies.
“The rest of the world cringes when they see the words
“˜jam band’ because they think of dreadlocks and granola
and a guitar solo for 40 minutes followed by a couple of lyrics and
then a keyboard solo,” guitarist and lead vocalist Tom
Hamilton said. “That’s not us.”
The guys in Brothers Past believe that the goal of a musician
should be to communicate with people, and the improvisation that
makes up the jam band scene didn’t allow them to have any
real depth in their lyrics. Hamilton also says that lyrics are also
what makes their electronic music accessible to listeners and not
just something interesting to listen to for a little while.
“You can reach the most people with the song and
that’s the purpose of the musician ““ you can make (the
listeners) feel things, whether it’s anger or making them
fall in love,” Hamilton said.
Brothers Past enjoy the fact that their music brings together
fans of different musical genres. And with multi-genre melding
artists like Franz Ferdinand breaking into the main stream,
Brothers Past not only has confidence in their own music, but hopes
that people will continue to explore and become interested in music
that offers a more original and experimental alternative to top-40
pop.
While Hamilton has long been interested in electronic sounds, it
wasn’t until a couple of years ago that the necessary
equipment actually became affordable to the average person.
“We’re trying to recreate this music live that this
guy in his bedroom on his computer makes, so it can be interesting
trying to make it authentic,” Hamilton said.
But the music lends itself to studio projects. The group’s
2002 full length CD, “Wonderful Day,” was a theme
record that examined the thoughts and feelings of someone with
insomnia, written as a group when they were going through a
night-crawler phase. They decided to try something different with
the new EP that was released earlier this month.
“For the statEPolice EP, we wanted to attack it from each
song individually and make each song its own piece of art,”
Hamilton said.
In addition to well-crafted lyrics, carefully creating the
structure of each song is a priority for Brothers Past.
“One of the things I can’t stand is a lot of people
just using a formula ““ verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge,
chorus,” Hamilton said.
Just as Brothers Past was able to learn and move on from the jam
band scene, it is their ability to continually change that they
believe gives musicians their staying power.
“Where is rock music now? It’s stuck in these trends
looking for the right T-shirt that fits,” Hamilton said.
“Creed and crap like that lasted for a year and then the
Strokes and all that stuff. A lot of this stuff is recycled trends.
Nothing made me more angry than The Strokes. If you look at the
bands that everyone loves ““ The Beatles, Radiohead ““
they never settled, they were always bringing something new to the
table.”