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When the prog and classic rock-loving masses of central Jersey head to Jackson on Sunday (July 26) to take in Yes and Asia's co-headlining performance at Six Flags Great Adventure's Northern Star Arena, they will be introduced to one of the stellar acts of the Shore music scene, A Diary of Need. Speaking recently to Metromix Jersey Shore, members of the band sounded confident that they could find some new converts in the Great Adventure crowd.
"We're optimistic in the sense that we're hoping that we're going to go there and people are going to at least understand a degree of what we're doing, or at least not hate what we're doing," said drummer Alex Ford of Atlantic Highlands.
Combining the sounds of acts such as Deftones, the Doors and the Cure with an added element of live improvisation, the band first began performing locally in early 2007 following the disbandment of lead singer and Monmouth Beach resident Thor Fister's previous project, an experimental hard rock band that had been known as the Green Room, then as Semi-Erotic Shapes.
"The whole time during the Green Room and everything, I had been writing my own solo stuff, everything from down-tempo trip-hop stuff like that to also just straight-acoustic (material), just me on a piano or acoustic guitar," said Fister.
"So, as I was compiling a whole bunch of songs I kept finding the concepts of need and these pseudo type of Buddhist concepts, I guess, and the whole life path thing and it seemed like a diary of need, really, and that's how the (band's) name was born. And I went out and actually the first A Diary of Need show was just me on an acoustic guitar."
The first musicians to join Fister in A Diary of Need were Ford and guitarist Shawn Garaffa (known in the band as Shawny G.), and the trio played its first show in February of 2007 at the Brighton Bar in Long Branch. According to Ford, he had arrived at the gig only intending on playing hand percussion to accompany Fister and Garaffa's acoustic guitars.
"There was a drum set there and the other band was willing to let me play and the guys were like, ‘Forget about the hand percussion thing, let's do this for real; go play drums,'" Ford said. "And then I sat behind the kit and we played that show completely unrehearsed as far as my drum parts went, and it kind of launched from there and we decided we liked it a lot better than the hand percussion thing that we were doing."
Eventually a friend of Ford's, James Malouf, was enlisted for keyboard duty, and the band's current lineup was completed when Neil Brown, a longtime friend of Fister's and a former member of the Green Room, came on board to play bass.
"I met him on a train ride to see A Perfect Circle and Nine Inch Nails back in '01 or something, and we always had a connection right off the bat," Fister said about Brown. "When the Green Room and Semi-Erotic Shapes broke up, it was really heartbreaking for him and I, because we were like brothers. And the opportunity arose to have a bass player on board and it just felt right and he came down and jammed.
"The first time him and I were back on stage together, I just remember us looking at each other and smiling, and it was a really beautiful moment. ... He's an unbelievable musician, and what he brought is just serious musicality. Our guitar player, too, Shawny G., he's super-sick technical. ... (Led) Zeppelin was his favorite band, and (with) him shredding but now taking some of that ambiance of the Green Room and of me, of course, having that, it just became like a powerhouse-type section with me just holding the rhythm down with the acoustic guitar."
Now the band, a 2008 Asbury Music Awards nominee, faces the ongoing challenge of bringing their unique sound to local music fans, a crowd which many believe favors a more traditional, classic rock-based sound.
"Like any other new, or original I guess you could say sounding styles of music, there are people that are more hip to it and those that want to hear ‘Freebird' and yell along in the background, ‘Play something that we (want) to hear,' and (want to) get that bar band sound, that stereotypical New Jersey bar band sound," Ford said. "But I mean, I think for the most part I feel like it's been well-received by a lot of people, I think we've had good comments, we've had great shows, we've had bad shows like anybody else, but I think as far as the scene goes, over the last five years I think they've added definitely more of an element of experimentation in the Asbury scene for sure.
"I mean, if you look at what Joe Harvard's been doing and his influence in the Avant-garde scene I guess you could say, I mean they even created the award (category in the Asbury Music Awards), basically, out of necessity for it because they had all of these bands they could really classify as ‘this is a rock band' and ‘this is a blues band.'"
For his part, Fister is confident in the band's ability to find new disciples in any crowd it plays for. "Everywhere we've played, we've won audiences over," he said. "We've played with hip-hop crowds, we played with the Flower Kings, which is an original Swedish prog rock band, we played with the Gathering, who is kind of like Portishead, just like down-tempo rock, we played Saints and Sinners festival, which was more emo."
"It just feels really good winning over any audience we get in front of, because it's kind of hard, I guess, to nail (down) our style, but it is ... Nirvana, Beatles song structure with that Tool, Deftones, Doors experimental feel to it," he added. "But, it's in a nice, strong package. I feel like minimalism is a really beautiful thing, and not being masturbatory, like why is that there? Let's just get to the point, let's serve the song."
When asked what he would like audiences to take away from a performance by A Diary of Need, Fister said he always strives for a feeling of catharsis.
"I hope the sound guy's good enough that they can get my lyrics out there, because all this music is based around that book of poetry, ‘A Diary of Need,' and the songs I wrote around it," he explained. "It kind of feels like a dark thing, but it has that phoenix-type thing of coming up from the ashes, and I just want to take people away from all of the monotony or bullshit or pain of their life for just that 45 minutes where they can come and just be with other disciples of Need and just rock out and let go where there's a free space to be the freak you want to be, be the voyeur, be whatever you want."
Fister also said he sees no separation between A Diary of Need and the members of its audience. "I never felt like this band is just the people up on the stage," he said. "The people that are in the room, we're all interconnected here, and they are just as much of the show as we are. Like the more that the audience gets pumped up, the more I get pumped up and there's synergy going on and it just helps you get through to the next day."
