About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Gatsbys American Dream

Encyclopedia : G : GA : GAT : Gatsbys American Dream

Gatsbys American Dream [sic] is a prolific Seattle-based progressive rock band. Since their founding in 2002, they have written four albums with a fifth in the works. They have also appeared on a few compilations with original songs and covers. Gatsbys American Dream drew their name from Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Although it's widely agreed the band is hard to classify into one subgenre, it can be said they draw influence from alternative, pop/rock, indie pop, indie rock, post-hardcore, and punk-pop.

Contents

Line-up

Biography

Gatsbys began with the disbanding of two bands called One Point Two and Good For Nothing. Bobby Darling was a guitarist for One Point Two and met up with Nic Newsham and Ryan Van Wieringen who were the lead singer and guitarist from Good For Nothing. The completion of Gatsbys didn’t come until they recruited Kirk Huffman (formerly of K Through Six) to play bass and Dustin McGhye as their drummer, to make them a five piece band.

When Kaylan Cloyd from the band Acceptance got his hands on a Gatsbys demo, he handed it off to record label Rocketstar Recordings owner Darrick Bourgeois. Shortly after this, they were signed by the local record label and worked with producer Aaron Sprinkle to record their 2002 debut album Why We Fight. Their first show after being signed drew in a crowd of 500+, which was largely due in part to the extensive promoting by Rocketstar.

After Why We Fight came out, the band regrouped dropping drummer McGhye and picked up the Waxwing and Bugs in Amber drummer Rudy Gajadhar. Then in 2003, the band released their second album titled Ribbons and Sugar. Ribbons and Sugar was a concept album loosely based around George Orwell’s fable Animal Farm. It became apparent to critics and fans alike after this release of Ribbons and Sugar that literary references in their lyrics were a thing to be expected. It also found them exploring ambitious experimental pop, opting for strange time signatures and tempo changes.

Gatsbys signed a two record deal with Rocketstar, and with Ribbons and Sugar being their second album, their Rocketstar contract ended and both parties decided that neither wanted to renew the contract, and both decided to go their separate ways.

Following its release, the band started to field numerous offers from other, bigger record labels. Slightly embittered by the receiving, the band signed a one-record deal with Chicago-based LLR Records (formerly Little League Records, who was also responsible for putting out the first self-titled EP for Chicago-based band "The Academy Is...") in 2004. Their contractual record, the more mellow and subdued In The Land Of Lost Monsters EP, was in part a response to the post-Ribbons record label attention the band received. Just about all of the labels that approached them thought they were excellent musicians, but wanted the band to write choruses for the next record, a normal songwriting technique the band had up to that point, seemed to avoid. Gatsbys, feeling uncomfortable about forgoing their integrity in order to get a record contract, continued writing music that they liked and in the way they wanted to write it. Newsham even wrote lyrics for "Lost Monsters" that referenced their criticisms and wariness of record labels. (for example: "the signal is corrupted/the songs are uninspired/where's the fucking chorus?/here it is/but you can't fuck with my integrity," - from "The Dragon of Pendor") Doing so simply brought them more acclaim as a progressive rock band.

Several months after the EP's release, the band settled on Fearless Records, home of such acts as the now-defunct post-hardcore/indie rock legends At The Drive-In. With their 2005 album Gatsbys American Dream and the Volcano, it became clear that, as a band, the group had progressed to further musical heights, and was highly capable of writing music that is different from other bands that are usually clumped into the same category as Gatsbys.

Volcano, thematically revolving around, unsurprisingly, a volcano (and Pompeii in particular, which becomes clear after seeing second track's title), was once again rife with literary and cultural references, from such diverse works as Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Enders Game, and Speaker for the Dead.

While touring after the release of Volcano, Gatsbys added a new member, Kyle O'Quin, who is also a member of the band Surrounded By Lions. A few months after O'Quin was added to the band, Ryan Van Wieringen met up with the band in Arizona while they were on tour there and was also added to the line up. Since then, he has been touring and playing shows with them, and might even write some guitar parts for the new album. Fearless Records announced that the self titled album will be released on August 8th, 2006. The first single is titled "Station 5: The Pearl."

Discography

Full-Length Albums

Singles and EPs

Compilations

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: