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By Toby G. Hayes BEAR RIVER CITY – On a Saturday morning the sounds of rock music can plainly be heard emanating from the basement of this northern Utah home. It doesn’t bother the neighbors much, since the nearest one lives about a half mile away. There’s not much else to do on a Saturday in Bear River City, half way between Tremonton and Brigham City, so these four friends gather to practice for their band. Between the four of them, they have previously been in 17 bands, but now, together, they feel they have the inside track, but call themselves The Outside. “We take everybody else’s sound and throw them into the mix,” said bass player Spencer Allred who also plays host to the band practices in his basement. “I definitely wouldn’t want to sound like anybody else. Any house in Utah with more than four bedrooms has a food pantry and that’s where the band takes root for the day. It’s 12 feet wide and 30 feet long; just big enough for a set of drums, two guitars and a lead singer. Each Saturday they practice amongst the cleaning supplies and camping equipment that also calls the room home. Unwrapping it from around his shoulder, Allred hits his bass guitar into the low ceiling, but barely blinks at the near disaster as if it happens all the time. Allred has been in the most bands by far. From high school to age 23, The Outside makes band number 10. The other Spencer, Guitarist Spencer Jones has been in four bands, drummer Mike Daines makes his band debut here as drummer, and lead singer Dirk Wise has been in three, but in one of those he played the drums. “It’s just fun to create music,” Wise said. For a guy who does all the singing and most of the song writing for the band, Wise is pretty quiet. Recommendations or questions posed by band members in between songs are usually met with nods or disapproving glances from Wise, whose style emulates that of John Popper from Blues Traveler. But even at that resemblance, the band’s style can’t be held down and pin pointed to any one genre of music. “There’s a little bit of a lot of bands,” Wise said. “U2 and Collective Soul,” Jones said. “I would say the (Red Hot) Chili Peppers, their older stuff,” Daines said. “Mr. Bungle, old Chili Peppers and old Incubus,” Allred said. It’s not that the band has an obsession with old and possibly outdated music, they just prefer the bands before they went mainstream. Because they are a smaller band themselves, they have made a habit out of following similar smaller bands in their careers, listening to and being fans of their original work. Allred says that sound changes when bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus and others sign big record contracts. They go mainstream and their own styles. Although they all have dreamed of being stellar rock stars since their first bands, they have come to the realization that, one, it’s not going to happen, and two, they don’t want it to happen either. “If we ever wanted to go anywhere, we’d have to sell out,” Jones said. They all dream of making it big, even “playing in front of sold out Delta Center crowds,” Allred said, but they don’t want their talents to become distorted by fame and big name record labels. Instead, they would settle for a contingent of fans, or small regional tours. “Right now I think we have about five fans,” Jones said as they all laughed and began to play again. In the middle of a song, Jones’ cell phone rang. As the instruments echoed in the tiny room as they halted to a slow silence. “Hello?” It was another local band asking them to play a concert with them the coming Friday. It wasn’t exactly a concert tour, but it was a start, even if it was at the local pizza parlor. During their Saturday session, the band played a mix of their own music and some personal favorites. Even through walls and thick insulation you could hear the sounds of Their version of “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith. It was the first time they had played it and it was completely improvised, but you never would have known it. “We just like to have fun,” Jones said. Adding to the playlist were bands such as Jimmy Eats World, 311 and MXPX, plus some of the eight original songs written by the band. Their most popular one at concerts is one written by Wise called “Another Day.” The song almost speaks for the band itself, their music a mix of different genres and personal favorites, something their fans have come to understand. The song’s lyrics go like this: “Now that I know you’ll understand me, I’ll stick around another day.
TJ
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