With a new debut album, the Grand Rapids band performed this week for Local Spins on WYCE, which also debuted new music from The War & Treaty, VAZUM and Skyking. (Video, podcast, story)
Influenced by Springsteen and Garage Rock: Jack Droppers in Studio X at WYCE. (Photo/Local Spins)
For Jack Droppers, the march toward rock splendor really began as an 11-year-old kid, recording snippets of songs through “a $13 toy microphone” and later playing in a three-piece punk band, The Sidekix, at a party for “the prettiest girl in middle school.”
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Americana-Driven Rock: Jack Droppers & The Best Intentions (Photo/Leighanne Evelyn)
Unfortunately, The Sidekix knew only one song and failed to capture that pretty girl’s heart.
Fast forward to 2018 and Droppers – along with his band The Best Intentions – now has plenty of songs to captivate listeners, with 11 of them appearing on the Grand Rapids Americana-fueled rock band’s debut album, “I Just Wanna Play Rock & Roll With My Friends.”
Droppers, a Grand Rapids native who grew up near Orlando, Fla., and returned to West Michigan to attend Hope College, concedes that the album title expresses a middle school-styled plea that remains a passion for him to this day.
“There’s a really true part of myself that just wants to play rock ‘n’ roll,” says Droppers, who adopted his family’s love of heartland rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger.
“It (album) definitely has a coming of age vibe, just wrestling with what does it man to grow up into myself and to learn what it is to be Jack Droppers. So, a lot of the songs wrestle with that and wrestle with faith and with doubt.”
‘A BLEND OF SPRINGSTEEN CASSETTES’ AND CENTRAL FLORIDA GARAGE ROCK
The band – Droppers (guitar, vocals), Laura Hobson (vocals), Garrett Stier (bass, vocals), Devin Sullivan (guitar, vocals), James Kessel (keyboards, vocals) and Josh Holicki (drums) – took about 18 months to record and self-produce the album, which was mixed at Stone House Recording in Grand Rapids. It features a mix of songs that were true collaborative efforts and others that Droppers brought to the band as the group’s chief songwriter.
Droppers says the band’s sound is honed from “a blend of the Springsteen cassettes” he inherited from his dad and “the garage-rock scene in central Florida” where he grew up.
Droppers, Stier, Sullivan and Holicki brought that earnest vibe to Studio X at WYCE=FM for this week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE, playing the songs “More Than Just a Little” and “While We’re Still Young” and chatting about their music. Check out a video for “While We’re Still Young” here and listen to the full radio show podcast below.
VIDEO: Jack Droppers & The Best Intentions (Jan. 26, 2018)
The band plays Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill in Grand Rapids at 9 p.m. tonight (Friday, Jan. 26) with Lane Ellens opening the show. Details online here. Droppers and his band also will open for national act Carrie Nation & The Speakeasy at Founders Brewing on Feb. 15.
On the Air: The band in Studio X at WYCE. (Photo/Local Spins)
“We’ve reached this point where we just really love making music together,” Droppers says of the band which already is working on a follow-up album and will debut a couple of new songs at the Tip Top Deluxe show. “The long-term plan is to keep playing and writing music together.”
For Droppers, that musical motivation began as a kid.
“Part of it grew out of this desire for self-expression and carried on as a way to process life – as a way to celebrate the good things and to sort of name the bad things in our world, and to live in that tension as a songwriter.”
This week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE also featured music by Jake Kershaw, Hollywood Makeout, The Fever Haze, Skyking, The War & Treaty, Roger Brown and Ghost Heart. Listen to the podcast here.
PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE with Jack Droppers & The Best Intentions (1/26/18)
Copyright 2018, Spins on Music LLC
