Explone is the music of Patrick Porter, Josh Williams, Kyle Stevens and Scott Andrew. Lured by lighthouses such as Cheap Trick, Hüsker Dü, Nada Surf and Swervedriver, Explone charts a confident course through frenzied power-pop guitars, bittersweet melodies and occasional sprawling shoegaze crescendos. The resulting music is indie rock drunk on melody and melancholy.
Patrick Porter formed Explone in 2005 as a recording project and an outlet for his own songs. A veteran of many Seattle bands including Crystal Radio, The Bourbonites and Red Jacket Mine, with Explone he stepped out of the sideman role and up to the microphone for the first time. Inspired by ornate pop artists like The Spinanes and Josh Rouse, Porter wrote a set of textured, intimate songs and set to work recording them. Initially joined by Josh Williams on drums, Porter did the rest and the pair released Crooks, their debut album. Hardly a typical singer-songwriter album, Crooks created a band feel before the band had fully materialized.
With an album to champion, Explone played shows around the Northwest while gradually evolving from a songwriting and recording project into a full-fledged band. Scott Andrew joined on bass, followed soon after by longtime friend Kyle Stevens on guitar. Pretty soon the last vestiges of singer-songwriter-ism had been purged, replaced by thick blankets of electric guitar atop the inventive and solid foundation of Williams and Andrew. Explone had morphed into a wholehearted rock band, and the next obvious step was to make a wholehearted rock album.
Teaming up once again with producer and engineer Shawn Simmons (Jen Wood, Grand Hallway, The Devil Whale), Explone began crafting a new batch of songs. This time the guitars stepped unabashedly to the fore, as Porter drew on a more amplified set of influences: 70's power pop, 80's post punk, and English shoegazers from the 90's. Working at Studio Litho in Seattle, the band molded the new group of songs into a sharp-edged whole, producing the upcoming release Dreamers/Lovers.
When one new song ("St. Yesterday") was leaked to independent radio flagship KEXP early in the recording process, it became a featured Song of the Day and received airplay for weeks, garnering Explone some new fans and building anticipation for the full album. Set for release in June 2010, Dreamers/Lovers caps a time of transformation and kicks off a time of celebration for Explone.
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