Sister-brother team form McKelvy Raygun

By John Benson

Roughly six months have passed since Hubbard native Alex Ahren traded in her dancing shoes for a guitar and a dream.

Along with her brother, Chris (guitar, vocals), the 2001 Hubbard High School graduate formed the progressive-sounding McKelvy Raygun, which is coined after her middle name, McKelvy, and Chris’ middle name, Ray.

“I was a competitive ballroom dancer for about seven years,” said Ahren, 26, who returned home from Chicago late last year. “But I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore and wanted to pursue music, so I came back to Youngstown. I was only in Chicago about two years, and I did work with one of the guys [Jesse DeSoto] from ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ but I realized dancing wasn’t my passion, music was. So that’s where we find ourselves today.”

Musically speaking, Ahren said the twosome is influenced by everyone from Fleetwood Mac and Elton John to Peter Murphy, David Byrne and Kate Bush. She also feels her dancing career has colored the sound of the duo, which often incorporates Latin beats into its songs. So far her favorites are the indie-sounding “Dandy Line” and the hip-hop beat-influenced “Recognize.” However, she stressed there are plenty of styles the act draws from.

“I’d say we’re adult pop,” Ahren said. “We’re trying to appeal to all different ages. As opposed to going hard rock or hip-hop, we’re taking more of an adult approach to our music. So we’re fusing a lot of different sounds together. Right now on stage, we’re doing a lot of synthesized things, and we’re trying to incorporate more poppy, hip-hop beats and jazz chords into the background.”

She added, “So far we’ve done about four or five shows in the past month or two months. We have a couple of more gigs coming up this week, and then we’re taking a few weeks off so we can start including keyboards, cellos, violins on top of those more classic, jazzy, rock guitar riffs.”

One of those lives shows is a Saturday gig at Barley’s. Even though the act is relatively new, Ahren already feels like it’s gaining a local fan base. Perhaps more importantly, she’s thinking even bigger.

“We’re definitely different in the Youngstown scene,” Ahren said. “Other people are saying it’s quite refreshing to the Youngstown scene, but we definitely don’t want to stick with [being local]. We’re pursuing this as a full-time career, and obviously it will take some time, but we want to branch out as far as we can, and hopefully those in Youngstown and in Chicago and Los Angeles and Europe – if we ever get there – will enjoy it just the same.”