Evelyn Barge
Asst. A&E Editor
Graham Shea/ Assistant Photo Editor
While the members of Soundmind will openly acknowledge they sometimes clash over artistic differences, there is one thing they’re not willing to discuss: the exact origins of their band name.
“It’s from the Bible, but that’s all I’ll say,” said senior speech communication major and Soundmind bassist Brian Bushway. “I always tell people they have to read the whole thing if they want to find out.
“Besides, the name is not that important,” Bushway added. “It’s really all about the music for us.”
Bushway, lead vocalist Travis McClain, drummer Casey O’Keefe and lead guitarist Jon Thomas make up the pop-rock, jazz-infused group.
The band mates came together for the first time last January when the Student Programming Board hosted “Pepperdine Battle of the Bands.” Although some of them had already played together in other bands, it was performing in the competition that brought them all to the same group.
While Soundmind did not win “Battle of the Bands,” they did walk away with a new sense of their potential as a musical group. When they began seriously practicing together over the summer, lead guitarist and senior business major Thomas said the band mates knew they had exceptional musical chemistry.
“We’d all just been waiting for the right lineup to come along,” Thomas said.
All of the band members agree that music has always been an integral part of their lives.
“The feeling is mutual between all of us,” said O’Keefe, who is a Pepperdine graduate. “Everybody had the same goal in mind, and we’d each been playing individually our whole lives.”
O’Keefe said once the group got together, they noticed the creative process becoming smoother.
“The creative process, when we’re writing songs together, is the real highlight of being in this band,” Thomas said. “It’s the best when each of our talents start to click, and we add our own artistic touch. Each of our songs has a piece of us in it.”
Once the group of musicians had officially crystallized into a band, they decided that they should explore a professional musical career together.
“We all kind of decided that, since the four of us are going to be in the area, we want to see where it goes in the next couple of years,” O’Keefe said.
Bushway said he recognizes the opportunity might not last forever.
“It’s something I need to get out of my system,” Bushway said. “Music will always be a part of my life, but I want to give it a try before I decide to move on to something else.”
But pursuing a musical career in Los Angeles is not always an easy task, especially for a newly formed band.
“A lot of the stuff being produced here is not what we’re into,” Thomas said. “It’s too formulaic, too recycled. We differentiate ourselves from a lot of the other music that’s going on in L.A. We don’t want to get caught up in that scene.”
The members of Soundmind said they are wary that the Los Angeles music industry often places too much emphasis on superficial aspects of a performance.
“The L.A. scene can be frustrating,” Bushway said. “People seem to be more interested in who is there and in being part of a hip scene than really appreciating the music.”
Still, being immersed in the Los Angeles music industry has some benefits for an up-and-coming band like Soundmind.
“There’s so much talent out there, regardless of whether it’s being played on the radio or not,” Bushway said. “It’s great to be in a place with so many talented musicians.”
Performances at Pepperdine, the band mates said, are a different story.
“For the most part, people here have been really receptive to our music, and that’s a great thing to have that support,” Bushway said.
But, the on-campus environment isn’t always conducive to putting on a good rock concert.
“The atmosphere is kind of sterile,” O’Keefe said.
Thomas agreed and said he thinks Pepperdine concert-goers are inhibited.
“It’s easier to put on a good show in a high-energy atmosphere,” Thomas said.
The band members said it doesn’t matter where they play as long as the audience members enjoy the show.
“Hopefully, the people who come to see us are having as good a time as we are,” Bushway said. “We’re doing something that we love, and it’s a ton of fun for us, so hopefully it is for them, too.”
A deep love of music doesn’t always translate into perfectly harmonious practices, though. Thomas said it often creates sharp disagreements.
“We all come from such different musical backgrounds and influences that we often have clashes and creative differences,” Thomas said.
“Sometimes, when we are writing a song or trying to finish a song, it gets pulled in all different directions.”
Bushway said that although the band mates might temporarily feud over different ways to take their music, Soundmind’s strength lies in their ability to talk it over and sort it out.
“We have some pretty intense moments, but no one ever storms out or tries to quit,” he said. “During one practice session we had around 10 minutes of complete silence, and I don’t think I’ve ever sat in silence for that long. It was a powerful moment, and it speaks a lot for us as a band that we were able to sit through the silence for that long.”
“I think it’s really symbolic that it was a chord from Jon’s guitar that broke the silence,” Bushway said.
Although they are close friends, the members of Soundmind said it takes more than just a friendship to keep a band alive, and they work hard to stay on the same musical wavelength.
They also said occasionally practicing in a completely dark room helps them better understand how Bushway, who is blind, operates as a musician.
“We pretend we are blind by playing in a pitch-black room, and that helps us start to understand Brian’s method of thinking,” Thomas said. “We’re looking to create a sound that’s true to ourselves.”
As they develop as a band, Soundmind is planning to head into the studio in December to record their first demo. But Thomas said that getting signed by a record company is not the immediate priority.
“We have to be happy with the sound we’re producing, over what a record company might be looking for,” he explained. “Hopefully the two will come together in the future, but right now we’re focusing on emerging as a strong band.”
10-28-2004
