by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
WHO: A Band Apart
WHEN: Saturday, February 3rd
WHERE: Murray Hill Theatre
“I really like the Murray Hill Theatre because it’s run by good people that care about music, but even more importantly, they care about the kids that go there.”
Nathan Bond is the singer and one of the guitarists of the Orlando-based four-piece indie rock band Band Marino. The group recently released their debut album The Sea and the Beast and they will be performing at the Murray Hill Theatre on Saturday.
“Jacksonville is just a tough scene to break into. It’s so spread out and not very centralized, so it’s hard to get kids to come to a show.”
Band Marino is one of the few Florida bands making the circuit these days that can’t be easily pegged as modern rock or hardcore. The Sea and the Beast is a delicately layered work rich with string arrangements, added by their friends Sean and Chris Moore, and it even features a guest vocalist that is a former band mate of Bond’s.
“The Sea and the Beast is just the first 11 songs that we’ve released. I don’t think in terms of The Sea and the Beast as being us, because we are involved in new things now.”
Band Marino’s song ‘Every Time I Make a Girl Cry I know I’ve Done My Job’ was recently picked as one of Rolling Stones ‘Best of Myspace’ songs, so the band has made some traction in a short period of time.
Now that their album is out they have plans to tour extensively in 2007. After their show at Murray Hill they will be heading up to New York to meet up with Mixel Pixel, a band currently touring with Of Montreal, and tour the Southeast with them.
Tracking the album only took the band two weeks, but in the two years that followed, they went through a couple mixing engineers before landing on Robert Wawoe, who just seemed to understand what Band Marino was after.
“We ended up doing a lot of overdubs while the mixes were going on, so that took another year. We were mixing and recording at the same time. It was a slow process, matching up the details and mastering and remastering it until we got it right. It was a big learning thing.”
In that time the band has matured and feels they are poised to write their next record. Two years, when you’re in your twenties, is almost ten percent of your life, so they’ve invested that time wisely in recording The Sea and the Beast. So far they have gotten a lot of positive feedback from all over the world. From South American fans that post on their Pure Volume site to a British filmmaker that came to every one of their South by Southwest shows.
“Maybe because there is an Americana side to us. Maybe the same reasons Americans like British music, they like us, I don’t know. We do well in the international community, and we hope to push that further. I’ve been Googling our name and finding us on Asian websites where I can’t even tell what they’re saying about us.”
As far as getting signed to a label, Band Marino is being smart about that as well. Instead of actively seeking out a label that will make them rock stars in a hurry, as many bands their age focus too much energy on doing, they are taking their time and making the music that they want.
“We’re always getting emails and hearing from labels and people are always talking to us about things, it is part of the regular part of our career over the years, and it increases now that the record is out, but there is nothing serious until there is paper in front of you, and we’re not in a hurry. We see labels as partners. Bands make and break themselves these days, so we have to feel really good about someone to partner with them in that way.”
Band Marino is joined by Eileen, A Slight Breeze, and Among Your Brothers at the Murray Hill Theatre on Saturday, February third. The show is all ages and you can get tickets online at murrayhilltheatre.com.
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