The award-winning Grand Rapids band unveils its debut EP recording with a full-blown rock concert production at Allegan’s Griswold Auditorium on Saturday. (Podcast, video)
Taking the Rock Path Less Traveled: Grand Rapids’ Uncommon Road, from left, Cash Rock, Kala Chantelle, and Sean Louis. (Local Spins Photo/Anna Sink)
Uncommon Road guitarist Sean Louis probably puts it best when defining what drives the band.
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“The heart of Uncommon Road has never changed,” he insists. “It’s all been about taking that uncommon path, that path less traveled. ”
For this award-winning Grand Rapids alt-rock band, that means unleashing an exuberant stage show complete with digital video images projected on a former Studio 28 movie screen, incorporating “a plethora” of styles into its music, and writing songs with a hopeful theme, rather than the standard gloom-and-doom bent.
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“It’s the message behind our music and what we stand for,” Louis says. “One of the things we like to offer in our lyrics that we don’t see a whole lot these days in music is hope, in any way shape or form – just that there’s always a way out of a situation. You don’t see a whole lot of that these days. … That’s what we want to bring to the table.”
That intense-yet-uplifting approach winds its way impressively through the band’s CD, “One by One,” set for release Saturday during a CD-release show at Allegan’s Griswold Auditorium.
On Wednesday, three members of Uncommon Road – Louis, lead singer Kala Chantelle and guitarist/backing singer Cash Rock – delivered a rare acoustic performance of its bracing rock during this week’s edition of Local Spins Live, playing the title track from the new album in the studios of News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW).
Take a gander at the exclusive Local Spins video of this performance below, with a full podcast of the show here.
The current lineup of the Grand Rapids-based band – Louis, Chantelle, Rock, bassist Andrew Vandenberg and drummer Nathan Jean – has been together for only about two years, but it already has won the inaugural WGRD Rocktagon Throwdown battle of the bands at The Orbit Room.
A STUDIO DEBUT THAT’S ‘ALL ORGANIC HARD-CORE ROCK’
Uncommon Road’s five-song debut EP – recorded by Jacob Rye at Sonus Clarus Studios in Adrian, Mich. – meshes alt-rock power and riveting balladry, with Chantelle’s lead vocals sounding a bit like a hybrid of Pat Benatar and Evanescence’s Amy Lee.
The Full Band: Uncommon Road
For her part, Chantelle (Louis’ sister) cites Journey’s Steve Perry, Celine Dion and Whitney Houston in shaping her own soaring vocals, absorbing everything from classical music to heavy metal while growing up.
“Everybody in the band is pretty eclectic, nobody is tied down to one thing,” says Louis, who graduated from Kenowa Hills High School along with his sister. “I love listening to everything from Count Basie and Glenn Miller all the way up to (Christian metalcore band) Underoath and super heavy stuff. … That’s why sometimes it’s hard to define where we fit exactly, only because we love listening to everything and it kind of shows up in our music.”
Louis also describes the band’s music as “raw, old-fashioned, hard-core rock,” an approach they embraced in recording the new EP. “There’s nothing synthetic in it. Even the stuff that sounds weird is all guitars, bass or drums,” he says. “Either we bent the strings funky or did something to the guitar we shouldn’t have to make the sound or whatever. It’s all organic.”
RAW, ENERGETIC AND A REAL ROCK SHOW
That doesn’t mean, however, that the band doesn’t pull out all the stops – technologically and physically – for its live shows.
With a mammoth movie screen behind them, Rock says the Allegan concert – with the bands Endless Warehouse and Chinese Baseball opening the night – will boast “lots of cool video, lots of imagery and lots of cool lights, sound – all the stuff that makes a good rock show. … It’s really pretty impressive. I’ve always been a big fan of seeing a show when I go to a concert.”
Uncommon Road on Local Spins Live (Photo/Anna Sink)
Uncommon Road chose to stage the concert in Allegan because it has a history with the community, recording a video there and playing the city’s Oktoberfest. “They’ve sort of taken us in,” Rock says.
More than anything, the live show will be about the band’s boundless energy and spontaneity. “The music makes you want to move,” Louis suggests. “It’s always been that way for all of us. … It’s never exactly the same thing, but it’s raw.”
Adds Chantelle: “That’s the beauty of it. When you’re passionate about something, it moves you so you don’t have to be choreographed.”
The EP-release concert begins at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Griswold Auditorium, 401 Hubbard St. in Allegan. Tickets are $8 in advance – which includes getting a copy of the new CD – and $10 the day of the show. Get tickets online here.
Get more information about the band at uncommonroad.com and facebook.com/uncommon.road.music.
UNCOMMON ROAD: THE LOCAL SPINS PHOTO GALLERY
Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2013, Spins on Music
