Surrounded by music equipment in the band’s recording studio, the members of Falling North feel at home partially because a few of them live there, but mainly because the chemistry and collaborated sound of the band flow naturally through their speakers.
When well-received bands Silverleaf and Undercrowd dismembered, Silverleaf members Zak Renfro and Bruce Rios, along with Joel Hawkins and Garrett Lofgren of Undercrowd, didn’t let the door shut on their music careers. Instead, they decided to combine forces and develop a sound as unique as their personalities.
“There’s a lot of freedom in this band,” Renfro said. “Anything we put together seems to be pretty cool, but we don’t just do this for fun. Our lives revolve around what we do in this room.”
But the guys are not always “all work and no play;” they admit when they step into the G.O.A.T. Productions studio, it’s business time.
“G.O.A.T. stands for ‘greatest of all times’ with an ‘s’ on the end.” Lofgren said. “‘Greatest of all time’ is a bold statement.”
While the members recently came together about three months ago, Falling North is by no means their first rodeo.
“We have all been in bands that have done well so we’re like a band of all-stars,” Bassist and G.O.A.T. Productions owner, Lofgren said. “Everyone treats this very professionally with their game face on.”
Though the band is fairly new, forming this past summer, the members are dedicating many hours in the studio to release their first EP to the public.
“We were in the studio for the past 28 hours,” Hawkins said. “The truth is, we work our butts off because the bands who don’t make it are the ones who don’t put everything into it.”
The EP, which is close to complete, contains four of the band’s tracks. Like every other element of the band, song writing is a combined effort. Though Renfro writes much of the music and Joel creates a lot of the lyrics, Falling North works together to create the final product.
“It starts off with a concept and flourishes into a full song to the point where we can mix different genres,” Hawkins said.
After the EP is released, the band says that a tour is not out of the question.
“I think within a year, we’ll be ready for a tour,” Lofgren said. “We’re open to tour as soon as momentum allows for it.”
And with word spreading about the band’s success, momentum is building fast.
“All of our bookings are based on word of mouth,” Lofgren said. “After a couple of listens, it changes peoples’ minds about our music. Either that, or everyone has lied to us about how good we are.”
Public approval or not, the band is confident in their music.
“We just believe in the music we make,” Renfro said. “I think that comes across to the people who hear us play. Joel is a great lyricist and I think that with his words and our sound, people can tell that we’re sincere. We’re not shy about it. I think we’re really good.”
Lofgren agrees.
“We have to take two Tylenol, because we’re sick,” he said, joking.
The band will be selling Falling North t-shirts on their website to help promote their name.
“Even if you don’t like our music, you’ll at least like our shirts,” Hawkins said, who created the designs for the promotional gear.
For more information on the band, visit their Web site at http://www.myspace.com/fallingnorthmusic.