Stokeswood – Pizza and Peroni with a Rising Indie Band

Not many bands have impressed me as quickly or as immensely as Atlanta-based Stokeswood.  This is the band that I can see live time after time, and they still sound brand new.  This is the band whose album I play in the car and at work and continue to share with anyone that has ears.  This is the band that I spent a Sunday afternoon with, chatting over pizza and Peroni draft beers.  Adam, Mark, and Reed of Stokeswood offered an intimate, revealing, and honest account of the band’s tribulations with bad management, the musicians past and present that have influenced their songwriting, and even their own three wishes should a genie lamp ever cross their path.  And if you’ve been wondering about The Legend of Carassia, well I’ve got that scoop, too!

Stokeswood’s sound is full of sonically integrated electric and acoustic guitar, piano, organ, synth and percussion. Their songs are so layered and euphonious, you’ll find yourself playing the music over and over just to catch all of the idiosyncrasies found within it.  Their live shows are charged with energy and linger with anticipation of the next costume-theme they will present on stage (we’ve gone to “The Future,” and gotten men in red tights and cowboy boots!).  You will be all but forced to dance when they get going!  The music is beautiful, the vocals are soulful, and the fun is outstanding.  Stokeswood never fails to put on a show worth seeing!

“I feel like we have a very guarded sound, but it’s also extremely vulnerable, if that makes sense.” – Adam Patterson

Coming together as Stokeswood
Stokeswood essentially began as a duo consisting of Adam Patterson and Mark Godwin playing around their college town in Milledgeville, GA.  With vocalist, Adam on acoustic guitar and Mark accompanying with electric guitar, the two of them alone managed to sound like a full band.  Even so, they heeded the suggestions of their former manager and began looking for a drummer to take the stage with them at the Centennial Olympic Park 4^th of July concert in 2005.  The two soon picked up percussionist, Craig Gendreau, which left the drummer position open for former college buddy Jon Joiner.  Jon played with Stokeswood despite his busy schedule on a national tour with jam band, Moonshine Still.  The 5-piece was rounded out with the addition of Reed Irvine on bass, though since he joined the group, he’s more frequently found behind the piano or synthesizers.

The Naughty Manager and Carassia
Over the course of three years, Stokeswood had written plenty of songs and in April 2008 were more than ready to create a debut album.  Their manager at the time got them into The Zone Studios in Atlanta and offered to pay for the entire production process.  The guys got in there and began recording what would finally turn into Carassia.  Meanwhile, behind the scenes, The Zone owner, Billy Hume became frustrated by the lack of communication between the studio and the band, and he never got a single paycheck promised to him by Stokeswood’s manager.  Throughout the time Stokeswood spent in the studio, the band’s manager was apparently warning Hume against talking to the band about anything to do with the recordings, and the naughty manager was not even consulting the band on any of the decisions to be made regarding their music.  Worse yet, the band found out through an unexpected phone call, that the manager was blatantly lying about making payments to the studio.

Naturally, this led to the dismissal of the manager and right into a beautiful working relationship with Billy Hume’s protege, Justin Mullinix.   Justin jumped on the production of Stokeswood’s first album and graciously allowed them to finish the recordings with Generator Sounds Studio and pay for it in installments.  In fact, all of the profit made at the band’s CD release party was placed in Mullinix’s hand as soon as the show was over.  And the band has just now finished playing enough shows to foot the rest of the bill!   Still, the stars aligned and their debut album, Carassia was completed.

The Legend
If you’re even remotely familiar with Stokeswood, you’ve come across The Legend of Carassia, an entire planetary myth composed of “Pure Notes,” GZ Monsters, chickens, and Conti!  It’s not long before confusion besets you, and you’re wondering where the hell did all this crazy sci-fi lingo come from, and how does it relate to Stokeswood?  I had to ask the guys, and they happily obliged to divulge their secrets.

Surprisingly, Carassia was born out of Reed Irvine’s inability to comprehend the lyrics to a song the band was writing at the time.  Reed says that he was concentrating so hard on learning the difficult bass lines to the song, “Half Empty Half”, that he never paid any attention to the lyrics.  Getting used to singing along with lyrics he made up along the way, Reed finally asked Adam what he was talking about in the part of the song that says “That Carassia, a different kind of glass.”  Obviously, Reed just didn’t hear the words right, but Adam thought it was a perfect name for the album, nonetheless.  So, The Legend builds upon Reed’s mistake and The GZ Monsters, which they each have tattooed on their forearm, are actually free-style vocals they recorded on top of the tracks that ended up getting pushed back to the end of the Pro Tools file.  The chickens come from some episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force that seemed hilarious to them under some powerful herbal influence.  And Conti, “the largest and most evil chicken,” seriously is a fart!  The creative energy of these guys goes far beyond that of music!

Influences Past and Present
After hearing the slew of musicians that have been influential in Stokewood’s songwriting, it became clearly transparent how the band has managed to pull off such a unique and powerful sound within their compositions.  Their influences are diverse and eclectic with no emphasis on genre or gender.  Here are a few of the artists the boys are paying attention to:

Adam -  Paul Simon’s “bipolar writing style.” Musically: Radiohead, Coldplay, Patty Griffin, Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun, Motown and Soul like Aretha Franklin.
Mark – seconds the Radiohead, Coldplay, and Patty Griffin, and adds the guitar stylings of John Frusciante. “I like the Chili Peppers, but I really like Johnny more so.  Just the way that he is singular in his notes.  It doesn’t take a lot for him to get the message across.”  Also a “geek for sound effects and echos” like those done by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.

Reed – electronic and industrial music, German industrial, NIN, The Whitest Boy Alive, rap; MC Hammer, Tupac, Outkast and current favorite MGMT.

The band’s favorite local band right now: Sealions.

Stokeswood Highlights
Stokeswood has had several memorable moments of feeling fantastic as a band.  Of course, finishing their first album has been one of these, along with playing to an adoring crowd at Transit Lounge in Miami.  They’ve played four years in a row on the main stage at the Centennial Olympic Park 4th of July Concert in Atlanta, and recently they added another exceptional experience to the list when they played at The Clermont Lounge under the name of their alter ego, Neckbeard.  This was the first time the band publicly presented a new electronic sound with which they’d been working.  They were nervous about the response they might get toward the new stuff, but the crowd loved it, and then they knew Stokeswood was moving in the right direction.  Not to mention, the guys were getting called out at the last Coldplay concert, “Hey, that’s Stokeswood!” But, no, Chris Martin did not notice.

The Wishes
At the end of the interview, pizza, and beer, I had one last question for the band: If you could rub a genie lamp and make three wishes for Stokeswood , what would they be?  Since I met up with three of the guys, it was only fair to give each one of them a wish.  Adam quickly responded that he’d ask to take the stage at Red Rock Amphitheatre in Colorado.  Reed would wish for “someone to believe in us enough, that had the right connections to send our music out to every radio station that would be applicable in the United States and every production company, record company…because that’s a lot of hard work and it’s something that none of us in the band really have any experience with and it scares all of us, I think.”  Mark said he was going to take Reed’s wish “one step further” and go ahead and ask for a contract to play a world tour!

So, while this indie band is waiting for an offer, check out their websites for an upcoming show near you.  Their calendar is constantly packed with shows in South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.  Also look out for a new full-length album named Neon White, and hear the title track at their next live gig.

Stokeswood: Adam Patterson – vox, acoustic guitar, Mark Godwin – electric guitar, keys, Craig Gendreau – percussion, Reed Irvine – bass, piano, synths, Jon Joiner – drums

www.stokeswood.net
www.myspace.com/stokeswood

Nadia Lelutiu

Related posts:

1. Stokeswood’s Carassia Envelops with Rhythmic Bliss
2. Live Review: Mobley, Stokeswood, Attention System @ The Highland Inn Ballroom
3. Attention System w/ Stokeswood and Mobley March 11