Biography
In a dingy converted warehouse, isolated in the midst of an abandoned industrial park in Brooklyn, 5 young musicians have converged to capture the tales that they have crafted in only a few short months. Hoping to return to a warmer, more traditional sound, The Morning Pages spent a scant 2 days laying down the majority of the material that will make up The Company You Keep. In the grand tradition of recording’s golden age, the band recorded live to analog tape to capture the true essence of the moment. With prominent influences such as The Band, Gram Parsons, Delaney & Bonnie, and Leon Russell, The Morning Pages purposely set out to bring a raw, rural passion to a city that has been smothered by the thin, angular, processed homogeny perpetrated by a million clones of the “new” New York Sound.
“We have no problem with the bands that have dominated New York for the last few years. I love The Strokes and The Walkmen,” say principle songwriter Grant Maxwell, “but I feel like there is a general yearning for a more substantial and organic music that is beginning to emerge in some of the new bands.” Guitarist Kevin Drost adds, “We all went through the standard indie-rock, punk, new wave, and pop phases, and we still listen to all of that, but I think we are more influenced by stuff we grew up listening to. Stuff our parents probably used to play: Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, The Byrds and even farther back into country, soul and blues”.
This mixture of country, soul, and rock, focused and filtered through the intensity of the city, is what defines The Morning Pages sound.
Grant grew up in cultural centers such as San Francisco, Nashville, Austin and, now, New York City. A PhD student, his stories reflect a vision of the “old, weird America” through the eyes of a contemporary academic. Kevin came to New York from Chicago working as an A&R rep for one of the largest record companies in the World. “I was out in clubs every night looking for a certain sound”, he says, “and I couldn’t find it, so I quit and hooked up with these guys.” After letting the British Government pay his Cambridge tuition in exchange for joining Her Majesties’ Army, pianist Alec Higgins, immediately skipped service to hide out in New York. While working off his debt to the Queen, he studied ragtime and blues piano, which led him to Grant. Bassist Matt Stiouli was happy DJ’ing, writing, and gigging in his Bible belt home of Tulsa, OK when his longtime girlfriend convinced him to move to The Big City. His Midwest roots permeate his playing which has a warmth and irresistible simplicity that made an immediate impact on the group.
With the lineup solidified in June of 2006, the band immediately set forth to wrap Grant’s lyrics in the reflected glow of their influences. Within 3 months engineer Travis Harrison hits record on the old Ampex 2” tape recorder. The sound captured cannot simply be described as Country Music or Folk Music or even Pop Music, but a truly unique combination of all of the elements of classic American Music funneled through the ears of a brand new Rock and Roll band.
