by Melissa Duong
The Disparrows. Dainty like little sparrows? No not at all. Not even close, though their name was derived from a combination of Disparus from the Stones’ “Under the Cover of Night” and sparrows. The band decided upon this name because they felt that a unique name would not pre-define them as there would be no previous connotations, denotations, or context to impose prior biases upon the audience. This would allow for The Disparrows’ music to fully speak for itself, and have they spoken? Yes. In fact, in more ways than one.
It is rather difficult to restrict this band to one genre. There’s a hint of everything from classic rock and roll to blues to country. The retro vibe exuded by the band belies the underlying simplicity and all you want to do is “listen, love, feel.” In fact, their ambiguous genre is part of their trenchant belief that the listening experience varies from person to person, and so when asked to describe how their sound was distinctive from all the other bands out there, they couldn’t do it. “We are what we are; our uniqueness is what the listener hears, not what we say…uniqueness, that is subjective to the listener.”
Again, the band successfully deflects away from themselves and allows the audience to go in with an open mind and leaves it up to each person to hear, ruminate, and focus on what aspects of the music he or she likes. Certainly, puts us as an audience on the spot. But then again, isn’t that what music should do? Put us on the spot. Make us feel. Make us think. Their approach is a little different from other bands, whose name definitely insinuates a certain attitude along with their associated genre. Here, we are in the driver’s seat. The Disparrows’ blurred genre could possibly be attributed to their varying musical influences including Roger Waters, George Clinton, Hendrix, the Stones, Sabbath, and Chains just to name a few.
On another note, The Disparrows also speaks out in “representing the true nature of everyone’s dream” for they produce, create, finance, and manage everything by themselves. They hold their own fate captive and feel that if they succeed, it is because of their own hard work and decisions and if they fail, it is their own fault. Ultimately, this allows them a greater appreciation for both the failures that compel them forward and their success that they truly earned in their own right. This attitude and admirable mindset is in fact portrayed in their song “I Did It My Way,” so for anyone out there who is feeling tentative, look to this song to have the courage of your convictions.
The band, consisting of Daniel Weber on vocals, Stephen Tecci on guitar, and Grant Loosvelt on piano recently collaborated with Anthony Focx, who is known to have worked with Aerosmith and Santana, on their full length album Making Others Rich (2013). The album was produced by Grammy Award winner Ken Wallace and was well received by fans. Working with Focx was extremely easy for the band as he was always open to new ideas, exploring and pushing the boundaries creatively. If I had to recommend a song for the audience, I would pick “Blackbyrd” and so would Tecci. There is a great deal of emotion conveyed in that song and a lot of emotion was invested into that song by the band. In fact, the original song was nine minutes long! Because their songs are so inspired by life, a lot of times songs just appear from hours of jamming and writing. There is no structure to the production of their music. Perhaps a lot of arguing and experimenting though.
This “you never know” attitude from Focx inevitably helped the band to reach a new level from their debut album, which was released in 2010. During the three year gap between album releases, the band played a lot of shows, wherein they collectively grew as a team and learned how to cohesively play together, understand each other, and further build upon the already strong drive and chemistry that they had. In terms of short term goals, the band is already working on an acoustic album and filling it with random ideas and songs that didn’t make the cut for the most recent album. Furthermore, they are working on some shows for 2014. Getting back out to live music is the next step, and for an even bigger step for the future, there’s no other plan than to “keep writing, keep recording, play bigger and bigger shows; grow the fan base and stay in touch with them! Keep building until it’s too big to tear down!”
Check out this band at theirReverbnation profile and their Facebook page.
