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Written by Kurt Brighton
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Thursday, 31 January 2008 |
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There’s a mysterious occurrence that sometimes happens when a band is firing on all cylinders, when the lineup is just right, when everyone’s on the same page. We call it chemistry, mainly because we don’t have a better word for it, but really, that’s too clinical, too cold. It’s difficult to describe—but if you’ve got it, you know it.
Perhaps the opposite is also true: if you have to ask if your band has chemistry, you probably don’t.
For local favorite The Piggies, finding the right combination of elements was something that took a long time—but it was worth the wait. Singer/guitarist Jason Larson and drummer Stacy Adams have been playing music together for more than a decade, as The Piggies and previously as Hollowbody and in other configurations.
But recent upheavals in The Piggies, along with Larson’s connections in the incestuous world of Fort Collins music, led to a happy coincidence.
“Our new bass player is Caleb Riley,” Larson said. “And I actually play in his project too (the Caleb Riley Funk Orchestra). I met him through doing live sound around town and I also recorded him at my studio in my house. Their guitar player was moving away and I said, ‘Hell yeah, I’d be interested in trying out!’”
 And despite differences in the band’s respective sounds—The Piggies have an infectious, hook-laden, alt-rock style that is still musically challenging, whereas Riley’s Funk Orchestra is, well, more funky—it seems Larson passed the audition with flying colors. His playing ability was never in question, but perhaps more importantly, he and Riley formed an instant bond.
“The personal chemistry between musicians is really important, too,” Larson said. “Just being able to hang with each other. Caleb always has like eight ideas ready to go, and we’re really comfortable bouncing ideas off of each other. There’s no tension about saying, ‘Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me, but how about this?’ It’s really natural and easy. It’s cool to have someone in the band who is as excited as I am about writing new songs.”
And putting these two talented songwriters together and seeing what they come up with is going to be exciting for music fans in Fort Collins. It’s been more than two years since the last Piggies record, Overrated, came out. But on that disc Larson proved himself more than capable as a songwriter, penning tight alt/rock/pop nuggets like “Underground” and “All to Me,” a perfect modern love song that could appear on the soundtrack of any John Cusack film. But Larson is especially excited to unveil some brand-new songs co-written with Riley.
“We have a couple of new songs that we’ll play at this weekend’s show,” he said. “We played Live At Lunch on KRFC last Wednesday, and we introduced them that day. But this will be the first time we play them live on stage.”
After this weekend’s show, Larson, Adams, and Riley will start looking at sitting down and recording. In the meantime, the influx of new energy from Riley seems to have jumpstarted Larson’s own creativity.
“I’ve been writing a lot of new stuff,” Larson said. “We’re going to start recording in the next couple of months. I have my own studio so we’ll be able to take our time and nitpick, or just slam it out, whatever seems to work best. We have everything we need to get it done. Preparing for the show has been taking up a lot of time—Caleb’s only been with us for month and half, so we’re slamming 17 or 18 new songs down his throat, but we should be ready to go.”
If you get the right people together, it doesn’t seem like work at all.
We call it chemistry, but there’s a better word for it: magic.
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