Real Rock band
Mar 1, 2004 1:40:59 GMT -5
Post by Aerometis on Mar 1, 2004 1:40:59 GMT -5
I just came home from seeing my favorite local band from here in Maine called Jeremiah Freed. They have opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jeremiah Freed has shared the stage with other established national acts including, Nickelback, Saliva, Jet, Greenwheel,Chevelle, Sinch, Goldfinger, Sevendust, Audiovent, Seether, Switched, Union Underground, Stroke 9, OKGO, Default, and Bad Ronald.
Here is a little bit of their bio and this is only on their first album...Their last album called "Slow Burn" is one of the best albums I have heard from any band in a long time...Also, their official Web site is under construction and will be open in about 2 weeks (www.jeremiahfreed.com) but for now here is a pretty good fan site where you can hear some clips and stuff... www.jeremiahfreedfanclub.sitemonkey.net/
How did a rock band from the small working town of York, Maine, score two local radio hits and a major label deal less than two years after graduating from high school? Let's review: While their classmates were sweating SAT prep work, Joe Smith, Nick Goodale, Matt Cosby, Jake Roche and Kerry Ryan spent the late '90s studying the classics-Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Skynyrd and The Who. The young group learned their old school lessons well-especially the part about foregoing fashion statements in favor of the fundamentals. At night, they burned the midnight oil, practicing and writing freewheeling rock songs into the wee hours, then road-testing the tracks at any hole-in-the-wall that would have them. By the time they graduated in June of 2000, the quintet-a.k.a. Jeremiah Freed-had already secured management and a fervent following that stretched from Boston to Portland. The kids were most definitely alright.
Jeremiah Freed's signature sound-Smith's soulful vocal grit, Goodale and Roche's glorious guitar work, and the propulsive kick of bassist Cosby and drummer Ryan-brings back rock's once-confident swagger by stomping to the beat of a different drummer-not a drum machine. And by reflecting back on hard rock's '70's roots, Jeremiah Freed is helping to restore confidence in the battered genre's future. More importantly, the band's songs seem to reach not just one gender, region or age group-but all of them. Says frontman Joe Smith, "I've had kids come up to me after a show and say, 'Man, I've never heard anything like that before.' Then two minutes later, an adult will walk over and say, 'Your songs really bring me back to the good old days.' It's an amazing feeling to think that your music can bridge generations."
This past October, the hard-working band went the D.I.Y. route with a self-issued, self-titled debut disc. Famed producer Beau Hill (Alice Cooper, Ratt, Bad Brains) recorded two of the album's tracks ("Again" and "How They All Got Here"). "Beau met our manager, liked the music, and flew out to Maine to work with us," enthuses Smith. "That was incredible. At first we were really intimidated at the thought of working with him, but we clicked immediately. He was open-minded and treated us as if we were his equals. It was a wicked good time." Within a few weeks of the album's release, a copy made its way to WCYY, an alternative rock station in Portland, Maine. No one could have predicted what came next.
"I heard the song 'Again' and immediately knew it was a hit," says Brian James, the program director at WCYY. "We decided to play it and the audience response was overwhelming. It ended up being one of the top five most requested songs, then spent a solid two months at No. 1 on our [afternoon program] Top 5 at 5. They outperformed-or performed as well-as bands like Creed and Puddle of Mudd." Shortly afterward, the station began playing "How They All Got Here" and that shot to No. 1, with "Again" right behind it in the No. 2 slot.
Says James, "You can hear that these guys grew up listening to their parents' records. That's definitely what attracted me."
Fueled by constant airplay, the album took off at retail, selling close to 2000 copies in just a matter of weeks. As if that weren't enough, Jeremiah Freed was invited to play alongside Nickelback and Saliva on WCYY's sold-out holiday show at the Cumberland County Civic Center. "Here we are," says Smith, "An unsigned band with the No. 1 and No. 2 song on a commercial radio station, and we're on this amazing bill playing in front of 8000 people. We went from zeroes to heroes."
Here is a little bit of their bio and this is only on their first album...Their last album called "Slow Burn" is one of the best albums I have heard from any band in a long time...Also, their official Web site is under construction and will be open in about 2 weeks (www.jeremiahfreed.com) but for now here is a pretty good fan site where you can hear some clips and stuff... www.jeremiahfreedfanclub.sitemonkey.net/
How did a rock band from the small working town of York, Maine, score two local radio hits and a major label deal less than two years after graduating from high school? Let's review: While their classmates were sweating SAT prep work, Joe Smith, Nick Goodale, Matt Cosby, Jake Roche and Kerry Ryan spent the late '90s studying the classics-Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Skynyrd and The Who. The young group learned their old school lessons well-especially the part about foregoing fashion statements in favor of the fundamentals. At night, they burned the midnight oil, practicing and writing freewheeling rock songs into the wee hours, then road-testing the tracks at any hole-in-the-wall that would have them. By the time they graduated in June of 2000, the quintet-a.k.a. Jeremiah Freed-had already secured management and a fervent following that stretched from Boston to Portland. The kids were most definitely alright.
Jeremiah Freed's signature sound-Smith's soulful vocal grit, Goodale and Roche's glorious guitar work, and the propulsive kick of bassist Cosby and drummer Ryan-brings back rock's once-confident swagger by stomping to the beat of a different drummer-not a drum machine. And by reflecting back on hard rock's '70's roots, Jeremiah Freed is helping to restore confidence in the battered genre's future. More importantly, the band's songs seem to reach not just one gender, region or age group-but all of them. Says frontman Joe Smith, "I've had kids come up to me after a show and say, 'Man, I've never heard anything like that before.' Then two minutes later, an adult will walk over and say, 'Your songs really bring me back to the good old days.' It's an amazing feeling to think that your music can bridge generations."
This past October, the hard-working band went the D.I.Y. route with a self-issued, self-titled debut disc. Famed producer Beau Hill (Alice Cooper, Ratt, Bad Brains) recorded two of the album's tracks ("Again" and "How They All Got Here"). "Beau met our manager, liked the music, and flew out to Maine to work with us," enthuses Smith. "That was incredible. At first we were really intimidated at the thought of working with him, but we clicked immediately. He was open-minded and treated us as if we were his equals. It was a wicked good time." Within a few weeks of the album's release, a copy made its way to WCYY, an alternative rock station in Portland, Maine. No one could have predicted what came next.
"I heard the song 'Again' and immediately knew it was a hit," says Brian James, the program director at WCYY. "We decided to play it and the audience response was overwhelming. It ended up being one of the top five most requested songs, then spent a solid two months at No. 1 on our [afternoon program] Top 5 at 5. They outperformed-or performed as well-as bands like Creed and Puddle of Mudd." Shortly afterward, the station began playing "How They All Got Here" and that shot to No. 1, with "Again" right behind it in the No. 2 slot.
Says James, "You can hear that these guys grew up listening to their parents' records. That's definitely what attracted me."
Fueled by constant airplay, the album took off at retail, selling close to 2000 copies in just a matter of weeks. As if that weren't enough, Jeremiah Freed was invited to play alongside Nickelback and Saliva on WCYY's sold-out holiday show at the Cumberland County Civic Center. "Here we are," says Smith, "An unsigned band with the No. 1 and No. 2 song on a commercial radio station, and we're on this amazing bill playing in front of 8000 people. We went from zeroes to heroes."