Piebald, Junction 18 Quake Plymouth State at 91.7 FM, WPCR’s Rock the Mountains Show

Over two hundred people gathered for WPCR’s Rock the Mountains Show Tuesday evening in the Fireplace Lounge to hear Boston-based bands Junction 18 and Piebald perform a free, all age show sponsored by campus radio station WPCR Plymouth 91.7.The energetic crowd erupted as Andover’s own Indie rock foursome Piebald belted out the first few notes of “Just a Simple Plan.” Some fans nodded in recognition, others offered a quasi-mosh while some just plain busted out with stage dives. In their fifteen-song set, Piebald covered each of its musical bases. Memorable songs from the past, present and future carried eager followers happily through the evening. Piebald played a few hits from their most recent album We are the Only Friends We Have (2002 Big Wheel Recreation) including “Rich People Can Breed, Karate Chops for Everyone But Us,” “The Monkey vs. The Robot,” and many others.Among the highlights the evening was an encore performance of “Grace Kelly with Wings” from their 1999 album If It Weren’t For Venetian Blinds It Would be Curtains For Us All and “American Hearts” from We Are the Only Friends We Have. The crowd cheered for an encore despite lead singer Travis Shettel’s forewarning “Encores are stupid, so we’re just going to play two more songs.”Chris Shaw, a junior at Plymouth was among those in attendance. “It was awesome!” he remarked smiling. “They totally played off the crowd, which was cool.” Lead singer Travis Shettel did indeed work the crowd, producing laughter with a comment in which he professed his love for pasta, the color green and Joey from New Kids on the Block.The band is easily recognizable in their tattered jeans, distinctively placed tattoos and scraggly hair arranged to cover the eyes projects an undeniably carefree image. They offer a comforting persona. When speaking to them, it is easy to forget their rock status. Between their humor and nonchalant attitude, they can best be described as easy going.In an interview on Tuesday afternoon the self-proclaimed “dorks” of Indie Aaron Stuart (guitar), Travis Shettel (guitar/vocals) and Luke Garro (drums) made a point to eliminate any doubt that Piebald will be going away in the near future. It’s true.Piebald has recently teamed up with Los Angeles-based Side One Dummy Records to release yet another full-length album All Ears All Eyes All the Time. Side One Dummy Records credits themselves with big name bands such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Flogging Molly and Go Betty Go.Those in attendance Tuesday evening were lucky enough to get a preview of some of the favorites from the new album. “Haven’t Tried It” and “Jealous Guy Blues” featured lead singer Travis Shettel on keyboard, and a smoother and seemingly more mature sided of Piebald. “We’re growing up a little, well, our music is anyway,” joked Shettel.”The new album is a logical step for us,” explained drummer Luke Garro during Tuesday’s interview. “We feel that the writing has gotten better, and our sound has changed a little.” Judging from Tuesday night’s crowd response to “Haven’t Tried It,” Piebald’s “new sound” was well received. A bit indignant about placement into a musical genre, Piebald has worked to resist an “emo band” reputation. According to fourfa.com, emo is short for “emotional,” a broad title that covers a lot of different styles of emotionally charged punk rock. Well-known bands such as The Get Up Kids, Thursday, Jimmy Eat World, Something Corporate, and many others have proudly distinguished themselves as emo. Piebald’s early influences include early 90’s alternative such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana, a touch of Hardcore and a deep-seeded partiality for the classics, like The Beatles. “It’s all about making different stuff that’s sort of loosely based on what you already listen to,” explained lead vocalist and guitar player, Travis Shettel, “If you listen to all sorts of different music, and put your own two cents into it, you will usually come up with something that the people will hopefully like.” “I think people make that mistake because a lot of the bands we play with are emo,” explains Shettel. “We don’t even have an emo sound, so it’s really not even close.” In an interview with manateebound.com in 2001, Shettel explains his disdain for musical labels. “Who cares? It’s a label. I don’t really like it, but whatever. If somebody said we were like classic rock I’d be like what are you talking about? If you’re going to name something they’re gonna do it anyway. A name will be created for everything. People have this human nature to label things.”The legendary tour bus remains a running joke between Piebald and their fans. “King of the Road,” the first track on We Are the Only Friends We Have explains the unique bond between a band and their first tour bus. “I can’t believe I loved something as yellow as you/it’s gone so deal with it man” is a lyric that says it all. “It just died on our way back from the West Coast, it was sad.” explained Shettel. “We have a huge red diesel van and trailer now, but it’s not the same.” Bullet holes give their current van a bit of character, but Shettel later admitted they were not only stick-on, but from Wal-Mart. “We’ve been telling people we got into a huge fight with a bunch of rappers, and they shot at us.”For the remainder of the month of April, Piebald will join fellow Indie groups Brand New and Denali for a quick six-show tour of the east coast. In August, Piebald will return to the infamous Warped Tour and hit some of the US’s major cities. Overall, it’s been a pretty amazing ride for Piebald, a high school garage band from Massachusetts launched straight into the mainstream. “We really have been lucky,” remarks Shettel. “This is our job, and we love it.”For more information on Piebald visit their website at www.piebald.com. For more information on future shows and WPCR Plymouth State Radio visit their website www.wpcr.org.