Coming off their second performance at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, the guys from Without-Excuse are ready to graduate from garages and gamecubes on to much bigger things. Their latest venue, The Real Music Festival, attracted over 24,000 people, and left the crowds begging for more. Their most recent self-titled album oozes raw rock, evoking old themes and forging new frontiers. Addictive drum beats and guitar driven melodies flow through each song and prove these guys to have what it takes to stay on your mind, on your iPod, and on your myspace top 8.
But honestly, take 4 guys from Connecticut, upper and lower West Virginia, and Osaka, Japan with as varied tastes as Incubus, Underoath, Creed, Thrice and Chopin, and the story writes more like a bad episode of Making the Band than a cutting edge addition to the world of rock. Nonetheless, when lead singer, Ryan Brown, brushed shoulders with drummer, Jonathan Belotte at Ohio Valley University in 2003, their musical passion was enough glue to not only keep the two of them together, but to pick up bassist, Brad Maki, and lead guitarst, Fumikazu Ishino. Shows started small at various school venues, but once the satin vocals of Brown hit the ears of the campus, it tears at me, this constant plea, to rise again through the other door, the word spread quickly in Parkersburg, WV about this new sound called Without-Excuse. The calls started to pour in, Do you play at parties? Whens your cd coming out? Can you do a promo for the University? And the unavoidable, Does he have a girlfriend?
Now 3 years down the road from their formation, Ryan, Brad, Jon and Fumi are in Nashville, TN diligently fine-tuning their acoustic rock set into an ear-catching blend of shiny melodies, distorted guitars and beat-the-steering-wheeltil-you-accidentally-hit-the-horn type rhythms. Theres an obvious element of spirituality and soul searching to their lyrics that tackles the conscious and begs for personal interpretation. Its a sound that you can relate to. And maybe thats why youll mostly find these guys spending their time after the show joking with the crowd and making conversation around the merch table. Their music is striking, their lyrics are real, and their members are transparent. According to Brad Maki (bass), I want to leave the crowd knowing that theres still bands out there that arent just being manufactured to create music for the sole purpose of making money Were strong in our faith and we play music because we love it.
In between their 9-5 lives in the music capital of the U.S, Without-Excuse is looking into the next year as their big chance to make their passion a career. Jon Belotte (drums) puts it this way, The biggest thing that has driven us in the last six months is sitting down, writing out ideas, and really making our passion show through our music. Here in Nashille, we want to do what were best at as a full time careernot just as a show on the weekends.
For contact info, Without-Excuse can be found at http://without-excuse.com, myspace.com/without-excuse, or taco bell.
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