There’s a ‘whole-ism’ to STS9’s ever-evolving art
WHO: SoundTribe Sector 9
WHERE: The Boot
WHEN: Friday, July 27
SoundTribe Sector 9 strives to be a fully encompassing experience. Their live show embraces the audience with improvisational movements and enhanced lighting, transforming a beer soaked bar into a dance floor bliss.
The band and its crew also surround themselves with positive vibes, almost a family setting. That harmony seems to translate into their visual and audio art, lifting the audience to a higher spiritual plain, comparable to the golden age of the Mayan civilization known as Sector 9.
The Atlanta, Georgia quintet entered the music scene just four years ago as somewhat of a novelty. Still, there are very few bands turning out "live dance music." And even those who attempt to infuse similar influences – jungle, techno, acid jazz, funk, hip hop – can’t quite capture the environment that is STS9.
To understand what sets that scene, imagine shaping your life around something you love with a long-time friend. Core founders, Hunter Brown and David Murphy, have been crossing paths since their early teens. At a time when most would be concerned with high school, girls and cars, something bigger had already begun for the duo.
"When I met Hunter, we definitely were not thinking about spiritual connections," laughs Murphy. "He’s a few years younger than me and he and my brother used to play on a tennis team together. Hunter was maybe 11 or 12 years old. Our parents were friends for years. But when Hunter started high school, we really started that connection. We would hang out every day playing acoustic guitars."
The winds would take Murphy to several cities over the next two years, but eventually he found himself back in Atlanta, and back together with Brown, who had continued on and found a third in the musical pursuit.
"Hunter called me out of the blue and said he’d been playing with a band and had this amazing drummer. He asked if I just wanted to get together, the three of us, and jam sometime. The drummer, Zach Velmer, was still in high school and we’d practice at his parents’ house. After a few weeks of just messing around for fun, it was obvious we had made a connection musically. Hunter and Zach broke up from their other band and we started playing live as a three-piece," recalls Murphy.
But that was only the start of the evolution. The trio immediately fell into a "jam band" genre, a title and following that is still popular with STS9 today. Although the inexperienced musicians only had a repertoire of about five songs, they managed to pull off three hour shows.
Enter Jeffree Lerner and David Phipps. Their percussion and keyboards would take the band away from acoustic jazz and in a new direction that would allow each of its members to grow. The electronica of the keyboards served as inspiration for break beats on the drums and percussion, which opened up a freedom for the other members to experiment with their passion for house-influenced music.
"Zach just came out one day with a sick drum and bass beat, and we were all like, ‘this is fun.’ Nothing had changed in that we were still playing the moods and the environments and creating the landscapes through string patches and working with the impromptu jazz style. But now we had house elements in funk songs."
Notice the lack of a vocalist. The absence of a frontman was never intentional. However, it too is an important part of what makes STS9 the family that it is.
"It was never a decision that we thought about; ‘Are we gonna have vocals or no vocals.’ None of us really sing or really enjoy that side of the music. We thought there was way more creative room without having to come back to that situation where you have to give your singer a platform. And at the time we were really turned off by lyrics. We were hearing a lot of bands that were trying to sing because the formula tells you you’re supposed to sing. And it was something that we really didn’t buy into. We didn’t want to add something over top of our music that actually took away from the music."
Today Murphy will tell you the band is never quite "complete." That’s because it’s an ever-evolving art fuelled by those who gather in front of and behind the stage.
"The energy that is involved in this band is bigger than just the five musicians onstage. The SoundTribe is open to anyone in the world who wants to be a part of it. There’s six other people on the road with us. Without them this wouldn’t happen. They are as important an element as the band is. It’s a symbiotic relationship. We feel people need to know who our light guy is, the DJ, the sound guy. The SoundTribe, that is them. They’re also a family of artists who are at the helm running our Web site, doing our posters, our T-shirts. All of that is just as important. We haven’t hired just anyone to do it because we want to make money. We believe it’s about getting a piece of art out there. There’s a whole-ism to the unit."
