by Brittney Corridean
When you add members from four indie bands and subtract a little tour time from their main projects, what you have left is Wedding Dress. The band consists of five members, Erin Elders (Maps & Atlases), Mike Russell/Matt Lemke (Suns), Bobby Burg (Joan of Arc) and Christian Dawson (Gypsyblood), who are about to release their first full length album. Currently, the Chicago-based quintet is out on the road (Brooklyn tonight) and headed to our humble abode, Philadelphia.
“Playing anywhere outside of Chicago is exciting,” states Elders about broadening the tour to new cities. The guys just wrapped up a show at Fun Fun Fun Fest (which is quite a hoot for those into the underground music scene) and are excited to come back to the east coast to perform at new venues.
Most of them members are Chicago born, however, Elders was born in California and Burg is from Ohio. The band originally started as a side project for Elders to keep song writing and being productive on his downtime from Maps & Atlases. He knew Russell from running into him by playing other shows.
“I just kind of called him up one day and asked him to play. It was a very slow process.” Elders says. The band added additional members all in good time and are excited about the release of their LP, Desperate Glow, (November 18).
“When you release an album, you’re always conflicted because you’re excited about it coming out, it’s new to everyone else but you’re also moving on. We’re already well into recording our next album,” Elders says.
As far as Desperate Glow goes, it has a unique, dream-like, surreal quality to it with acoustic and electric blends. Elders spent a lot of time writing the songs while on tour. “You have so much time on tour doing nothing, songs come out of necessity. I wanted to be creative and break out of routine. I would wake up early, go to the van and work on music,” he says.
His innate intentions are always tapping into his creative self. “This band is about song writing. The musical relationships and how things lock in together.”
While in Philadelphia, the band has some old friends they hope to catch up with since they have a few days off before heading back West. You can check them out this Saturday, November 15th at Bourbon and Branch @ 8pm.
