Lewis - The College Station, TX cow town kids
Along with its many other odd features, Texas is definitely a state of rivalries. Any place where "Ford versus Chevy" and "Dallas versus Houston" are seriously debated topics has to be a little bit off. However, the greatest of the Texas rivalries has to be between Texas A&M and the University of Texas. For those of you not fortunate enough to be familiar with the quirks of this great state, Texas A&M is located in one of many Texas "cow towns," College Station, while UT is located in Texas' only music town, Austin. Taking all this into consideration, it seems odd that a band like Lewis would find its' roots not on the Austin side of the rivalry, but in the heart of the cow town.
"Three of our members went there (Texas A&M)…. It was good and bad. It was not a music town, but there was a small group of people…. [Ours] was the kind of music they enjoyed. A lot of good bands came to town, like Sunny Day Real Estate and Girls Against Boys…. There was a good independent record shop," Brett Tohlen, Lewis' guitar player and singer recollects. "We met people who were into the same things. It's not Austin, but I don’t know that it was all that different."
Whether it was different or not, the band relocated to Dallas after their cow town days, a town typically more sensitive to a rock bands' needs. After recording some demos during the year 2000, Lewis sent their songs to several record labels, and caught the attention of North Carolina based Deep Elm Records. One song, "Everything's Changed," was included on Deep Elm's Emo Diaries Six, which began a relationship between the band and the label. Lewis then saw themselves signed in late June and recording the first week of August.
"After that, we all started talking about releasing some albums with them, it worked for us and worked for them so we went with it," Tohlen says. "We ended up being on the label just about the time we were heading into the studio." Their upcoming release was produced by Matt Pence at Echo Lab in Denton, TX, a producer who Tohlen felts was able to put his personal touch on the album. "You listen to it and you can tell Matt Pence did it…. It took longer than we thought it would, but it was a lot more fun than the first time [that Lewis recorded]…. Matt was a part of the band creatively in a small way … that made it more than just a demo or something selfish. It became something more than who we were."
The band, whose members also include guitarist and singer Matt Beaton, bassist Jeff Truly, and drummer Joey Parish, has recently seen some interesting changes of circumstance beyond getting signed. Beaton recently moved to Chicago while his wife attends the Art Institute of Chicago for two years. This has compelled the band to come up with different methods of writing songs. "We are doing stuff where we record on our own and swap the tapes with other band members…. We'll see what it's like. It's not the most ideal situation," Tohlen admits, but continues by stating, "If I've learned anything being in a band, being in a band is not the most ideal situation. Doing something creatively with three other guys . . . it's hard, and you never find what you think is most ideal. That's what's so cool about it. It always ends up becoming more than what you expected."
Though Lewis has been a part of the Dallas scene for several years, they played the New Band stage at this year's cornerstone. It was Tohlen's first trip to Cornerstone, and beyond his initial amazement at the number of tents on the campgrounds ("The tents went on forever, I dint know when the tents would end"), he was further impressed by the crowd that watched Lewis play. "I didn’t think anybody would be there, most people hadn't heard of us, it was a great experience to see all those people out there -- it was encouraging to us," Tohlen states. "I was blown away by the response that we got. I didn’t expect as many people as there were."
Despite their appearance on Deep Elm's Emo Diaries, Lewis doesn't really consider themselves an emo band . . . but then again, who does? "I didn’t even know what the term ["emo"] was until recently," Tohlen admits. "I just started looking into what it meant . . . I think it goes back to bands like Rites of Spring, Fugazi, and lots of Midwestern bands that have that label. I don’t mind the label that much, as long as it doesn’t become what you are…. Like, punk music is a way of describing something. I don’t think we are [emo], but our music has a lot of traits that allow people to lock us into that, but we grew up listening to the Cure, REM, New Order -- to me, that’s like emo music. I see the emotion they brought to music."
At the same time, Lewis isn't willing to be pigeonholed by a label or by their influences. "I think we've been able to find our own sound, [and] how we can put our own touch on it. It's one thing to grow up liking Radiohead and the Cure, and it's another to take all these influences and make something that’s your own. And I think that’s what we've tried to do -- make something of our own."
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