THE MAINS SF
Foster Calhoun
Fraser Lunney
Clay Bell
Andrew Griffin
Justus Dobrin
Influences
The Stone Roses, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Beatles, U2, The Velvet Underground, Oasis, The Cars, The Who, AC/DC, The Faces, Bowie, Ryan Adams, T Rex, The Kinks, Suede, The Police, Roxy Music, Marshall Amplifiers, The Replacements, Your sister, Black Leather, Cheap Beer, Smashed Guitars
With a breathtaking blast of Rock and Roll fury, The Mains have quickly established themselves as one of this year's most undeniably exhilarating new bands. The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get, the Los Angeles based group's Rock Show Records debut, is electric with cool new wave thrills, hard core Ziggy Stardust era guitar theatrics, and epic Beatles inspired song structures, like the majestic album closer, "Two in a Million." Though The Mains high voltage sonic attack is fueled by founders Rich McCulley's primal rock riffing and Foster Calhoun's gorgeous howl, tracks like "I Threw It All Away" and "By The Way" are drenched in a beautiful melancholy of strings, keyboards, and layered harmonies that sound eerily like some forgotten AM radio masterpiece. The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get is a triumphant and heart breaking song cycle, a celebration of cranked amplifiers, blown fuses, late nights, young lovers, excess inspired madness and teen-age kicks. In short the stuff of Rock and Roll legend.
The Mains were born appropriately enough after an evening of Budweiser induced lunacy. "Rich and I were sitting around his place one night doing shots and listening to Bowie," remembers Calhoun. "We started talking about what a drag it is that no one makes albums like Ziggy Stardust or Definitely Maybe anymore. I'm not sure how much we drank, but by the time I woke up the next afternoon I was in a new band." The first song the two wrote together was the future classic, "California Death Wish," a song inspired by equal parts Jesus & Mary Chain feedback worship and an indie film being produced by mutual friends. After that, the newly energized duo were off to the races, raiding their vast record collections and extensive guitar arsenals for the ammunition to riff out their first album.
Hanging out in Nashville of all places, the band hit on a sudden creative breakthrough. "I was banging out the lead to a song I was working on, when Foster got this wild look in his eyes," recalls McCulley. "He kept shouting over and over that's it, that's the Sound." And what a sound a little Oasis, a little Roxy Music, a little Thin White Duke, a little Replacements, a little Beatles and a whole lot of Marshall Amplifiers. Returning promptly to Los Angeles, the band recruited a cast of like-minded characters and set out to make their own personal desert island disc. "Before every session we'd throw on a copy of What's The Story Morning Glory and just crank it til the windows shook," says Calhoun. "We wanted that same huge perfect sound and we weren't going to stop until we got it."
The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get features 10 Hi-Watt arena worthy anthems, ranging from the sleek new wave thrills of "Tonight" to the Stone Roses induced dance rock of "The Higher We Get" to the majestic seven and a half minute guitar epic "Two in a Million." A chronicle of glittering excess, broken heartened lovers, and rock n roll redemption, the tracks segue flawlessly from one to the next. Taking as their model such classic albums as Astral Weeks, Siren, and Purple Rain, McCulley and Calhoun labored to craft a record that was more than the sum of its parts -- something mysterious, something that would linger in memory.
From its first thrilling squall to its final haunting notes, The Higher You Get is a triumph, the sound of a thousand lost weekends and an endless summer of love, the kind of album that demands you play it at maximum volume.
Watch for The Mains on the road this spring and summer in support of The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get.
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