I have a good buddy who barely knows the title of his favorite song, much less the lyrics. He’s all about the music. Period.
In my case, a song won’t bowl me over unless I feel a special synergy between the words and the music that produces something larger than the sum of the two parts.
So I guess it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that when a song pops into Scott Terry’s head, he often hears the words and music at the same time.
Terry is the lead singer and driving force behind one of my favorite bands in the land, Red Wanting Blue.
They’re going to rock the golf world Saturday night at Firestone Country Club after the conclusion of the third round of the Bridgestone Invitational, teeing up their show about 6:30.
The price is right: free to anyone with a ticket to the tourney.
Red Wanting Blue’s sound is easily accessible but unique, crossing back and forth among the genres of indie rock, pop and folk.
The Columbus-based band has become a regional monster, capable of selling out back-to-back nights at the House of Blues in Cleveland and attracting 9,000 people to a Rockin’ on the River show in the Falls in 2012.
But, sadly, they haven’t made a national breakthrough, despite playing 200 gigs a year for 20 years, from East Coast to West Coast, and appearing on the Letterman show awhilr back.
Now, you might imagine playing Letterman would be the most memorable gig on a regional band’s resume. Nay. Although it was “a feather in our hat,” Terry says of the 2012 show, it also was in many ways a pain in their posterior.
“It was pretty tough,” he says by phone during a break in a preproduction session for an upcoming album at a big warehouse in Columbus.
The guys had to arrive at 3:30 in the morning for the load-in and sound check, and were sent away at 8 a.m. Then they had to return at 12:30 p.m. for a lighting check before, finally, the late-afternoon taping.
“I just remember being really tired,” he says.
He has had much more fun during numerous annual gigs on the Rock Boat, where about a dozen bands take turns performing on an enormous cruise ship packed with people.
The Firestone appearance is the handiwork of Akron public radio station WAPS (91.3-FM), aka The Summit. The station has struck gold two years in a row now, having imported another regional monster, The Clarks, last summer.
WAPS has featured RWB on its playlist for years, and General Manager Tommy Bruno is among the fans of their music.
“It’s fun and it’s very accessible to a rather broad range of audience,” he says.
“I think I could bring my 9-year-old and he would enjoy it, and I think I could take my mom and she would get it. Their music is catchy, and it’s kind of infectious.”
It certainly is. Their best stuff will be dancing through your head at all hours of the day and night. But they’re certainly not a party band. The lyrics sometimes turn quite dark.
If you’re a RWB rookie, you could start by Googling White Snow, Audition, Start Over, Love Remains and You Are My Las Vegas.
Terry’s the key
The band — which includes Creston native and Youngstown resident Dean Anshutz on drums — succeeds in large part because of the creativity, stage presence and milkshake voice of Terry, a native of New Jersey who formed RWB during his college days at Ohio U.
I have no idea how people hear original songs in their heads. Terry isn’t sure where that comes from, either, but he has learned not to force it.
“As I’ve gotten older [he’s 40], I don’t find myself sitting down and trying to write. It’s sort of ‘live your life and enjoy it, and it will strike you.’ When it does, it is important for you to meet it halfway.”
That means forgetting about finishing the dishes and grabbing the smartphone.
“I have a lot of gigs on my phone that go toward the voice memo app,” he says with a laugh.
Stage energy
The live shows reflect the fact that, after fighting through life on the road day after day after day, Terry is thrilled with the payoff.
“I’m always elated when I get out on stage,” he says.
“I’m amazed at these [big-name] bands that travel all over the world; it took so much for you to get there, are you really going to walk onstage and act like you’re sullen? Act like you don’t care? Look down? ‘No, it’s just that I’m shy.’
“It’s a whole part of your shtick. ‘Gotta look cool, man.’ Really? That’s the impression you want to leave? You’re too cool for school?”
However, as Terry points out, he’s not exactly shooting off pyrotechnics and streaking around in spandex pants, a la David Lee Roth. It’s a happy enthusiasm, not gimmicks.
Behind the name
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably asking, “Hey, Bob, what’s the name mean?”
Glad you asked.
Terry put a lot of thought into it back in college.
“For me, it was like we were creating a religion. I didn’t want to be a band like Eve 6: ‘We based it off of an X-Files episode.’ Ay yi yi. That just seems so shallow.”
Terry was captivated by its simplicity and liked the fact that it didn’t telegraph the type of music they play.
“Red, blue and yellow are the only actual primary colors,” he says. “Yellow could have made it in there, but it just didn’t sound as good.
“Because they are primary colors, one cannot be the other. But it is our human condition to try anyway.”
In other words, people keep wanting to be something they can’t be. Such as nationally known performers.
He compares RWB’s two-decade struggle to crack the big time to Sisyphus pushing his boulder.
“It’s almost like a defeatist thing. Red Wanting Blue. ‘Well, you can’t. You can’t do that.’ But we try anyway, because it makes life more interesting.”
During about 45 minutes on the phone, Terry was engaging, funny, candid and expansive. You’d like him. And you’d like his music, too, if you don’t already know it.
Tell you what: If you attend the show Saturday and don’t care for him, I’ll refund the cost of your concert ticket.
That would be the free one.
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31