Album Notes

Article By:
Chris DeRosier
November 08, 2006
http://www.springfieldgo.com/stories/story/233

One word comes up a lot when talking to the members of The Horizon Is After Us: “Legitimacy.” At times, it starts a sentence. At others it adds emphasis to a thought. Truth is, the four current members—bassist Jason Ball, vocalist Lance Grant, guitarist Erik McGreevy and drummer Scott Perket—couldn’t be more preoccupied with legitimacy and all the different ways to go about establishing it.

Coffee beans have nothing to do with legitimacy, but the bandmates munch on a few as they discuss the most legitimate product they can offer: their music. McGreevy and Perket have played music together since high school in local metal bands such as Hindrance, Poor Man’s Vision and Music For An Image. The last of these brought Ball into the fold after his stint in the group Pivital. Pivital’s frontman, Grant, joined the others a few months ago and the lineup was complete. Playing “Six Degrees of The Horizon Is After Us” may require a flow chart and an abacus, but the members say what they have now is an extraordinary chemistry and creative energy. “When we started, we had so many ideas,” McGreevy says. “We were playing songs that were 30 minutes long.”

The band crafts a very ambient style of hard rock, exemplified on its self-titled EP release due in local stores November 21. The album’s six tracks are the result of painstaking studio work; Ball says the band members spend every waking hour either working their day jobs or recording. “We’re a stressed-out group of guys,” Perket says.

They’ve sought just as much legitimacy in how they market themselves, writing out a step-by-step plan on a dry-erase board in the basement of Nick Sibley’s downtown studio. The overall philosophy: Play fewer shows, but make each one a memorable event. Make the concert as much a visual landscape as a sonic one. Always leave people wanting more.

It’s worked to tremendous effect so far; the band’s first show last April brought in 50 people, many of them friends and acquaintances. Their second concert was in front of 100 people, most of them unfamiliar faces. The band’s EP release party November 18 will be only its sixth concert, but already the group has a dozen corporate sponsors on board to help promote it. Despite the progress, McGreevy says he maintains a simple philosophy: Never get arrogant. “You can always do something better in music,” he says. It’s as legitimate a credo as one could hope to hear from a band.