With the release of their second EP, SeXyCraZyCOol, Poison Ivy League has announced themselves as the latest Plymouth based band to take notice of. The album’s title, as well as its cover art, will sound and look familiar to lovers of 90’s pop out there, as it comes from the TLC album CraZySeXyCOol.
Poison Ivy League is made up of Bobby Davis on bass, Chris Gaudette on drums, Jake Desmarais playing guitar and lead vocals, and Sarah Desmarais on keyboard. The band formed in the summer of 2010 through a jam session at a party. “One night Chris was playing drums and I brought my guitar over, [and] played, [and we were] like, we should start a band!” From there, things fell into place. Jake recruited his sister, Sarah, to play keyboard and from there they recruited a bassist. Eventually, after recording their first three-song EP, which was released online at the end of the summer of 2010, the original bassist left the band. This move led to the recruitment of Bobby Davis to step in and into the lineup that makes up the band right now.
Davis described the band aptly when he said that their sound was “pop punk, with keyboards.”
The SeXyCraZyCOol EP runs only a brief eleven and a half minutes with the longest song running a few seconds over three minutes. The punk aspect of the band drives through each song quickly and economically, making sure that you get the point and that they never overstay their welcome. The lyrics hit on the universal topics of love and rough relationships, providing the pop aspect to the EP. But despite the commonness of songs about love and relationships, the Poison Ivy League’s unique delivery presents them in such a way that they manage to feel fresh and new.
Jake Desmarais says that with SeXyCraZyCOol, the band is breaking away from what they did on their first EP, Dancin‘ And Cool Ranchin’, due to the “certain mode [they were in] when they wrote [the new] songs”. The band also seems conent with the EP format and plan to release more in the future.
In support of SeXyCraZyCOol, the band has been in the process of lining up gigs. One is on March 24 at 6:00 PM at Anchor’s Up in Haverhill, MA with Fusebox Poet and Sardonic; another gig is coming up sometime in April at UNH. If you can’t make the drive down or you can and are looking for some good road music, both of Poison Ivy League’s EP’s, SeXyCraZyCOol and Dancin’ And Cool Ranchin’, are available for free download on http://poisonivyleagueband.bandcamp.com/.