Avers… The “Band”

Like recently profiled indie poppers The Colourist – albeit quite a bit more “badass” –Richmond’s Avers are an act that PHILTHY MAG have been fans and friends of for...

Like recently profiled indie poppers The Colourist – albeit quite a bit more “badass” –Richmond’s Avers are an act that PHILTHY MAG have been fans and friends of for quite some time.  The “super group” of sorts, composed of members of The Mason Brothers, Farm Vegas, Hypercolor, The Trillions, and even The Head and the Heart (Tyler Williams) were still planning the release of their debut album in December of 2013, when I first spoke to band member JL Hodges.  The motley crew of musicians was drawn together with the idea of creating a psychedelic record – although it could be considered a bit more abrasive than the average psychedelic output (I once characterized it as “if Dischord Records did psych rock.”)  From that point, nearly a year and a half ago, Avers became a full-fledged band.  In the first half of 2014 the Richmond outfit actually played three gigs in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, released their first full-length (Empty Light), and gained a decent bit of radio airplay, prompting them to record more new material. The last time I spoke with JL they were gearing up to play their fourth Philly show with the first night of their first official headlining tour at Johnny Brenda’s.  I was also told that the band had written a sizeable amount of new material.

Avers are returning to Philly this coming Monday, March 2nd, when they’ll be supporting Elel at Johnny Brenda’s and I recently got a chance to chat with band member Adrian Olsen about what the band’s been up to.  He admits that while Avers wasn’t conceived of as a proper, full-time band, it’s something that has both gotten enough of a supportive response and that the members have enjoyed indulging to give the project an exciting and formidable future: “Avers is a band that started in the studio; it wasn’t really intended to be a band.  But we’ve had a great time playing and touring.  We got to play a really cool, crowd-sourced show with Foo Fighters and we opened for Real Estate, so we’re really excited about it, but it can also be tricky because the members are all also still working with different projects, like Tyler with The Head and the Heart, who are obviously big and were very busy the second half of the year last year, so we had to split our time.”  The last time I talked to JL he told me that the band’s goal was to have 40 songs written before they put out their next record.  When I ask Adrian about how this has come along he admits, “We have got about 18 songs tracked and a lot of them mixed.”  However, he also tells me that Avers’ sophomore effort, in a lot of ways, actually feels like the debut from the band that currently exists: “It’s great having five writers in the band.  We’re more of a band now.  It’s more cohesive and feels like our first record as a band.”

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During the day Izzy Cihak teaches transgression, subversion, and revolution at Temple University. At night he haunts Philthy's best venues to cover worthwhile acts for Philthy Mag. Morrissey is everything to him and, in their own heads, all of his friends see themselves as Zooey Deschanel.

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