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Surging forward, with a bang
By John Benson
In case you want to get insight into the thought process and driving force behind newcomer rock act American Bang, just take note that the band wrote and recorded its debut self-titled affair while fueled by beer and whiskey.
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” said singer-guitarist Jaren Johnston, calling from outside of Nashville, Tenn. “This is an all-the-way-around fun, summer record, and it definitely has that swagger in it where you can tell we were pretty drunk when we were in the studio. A lot of it was right off the floor, and basically what we were trying to do, and we got pretty damn close to it, was something that was reminiscent of the old [Tom] Petty records.
“Our big influence going into it was his ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ album. We kind of went through a lot as a band to get to the point where we actually got to make the record. And we wrote a lot and toured all the songs before we did it. Basically what we wanted to do was write a real rock ’n’ roll record that kind of sounds like the heart of American rock ’n’ roll and kind of brings that back.”
Formed four years ago out of the Music City, American Bang has been working toward the release of its debut for a while. Tours with ZZ Top and The Pretenders were used to road-test the material that would eventually make it onto the new album, which is due out Aug. 31. Then came the reality that super rock producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Aerosmith, M ∂tley Cr ºe) would be helming the project. After hearing the news, Johnston said Rock’s involvement ended up being a “game changer” for the outfit.
“Dude, it was killer,” Johnston said. “It was like, ‘OK, we’re not just going in and making some record. We’re going to go in and make a kick-a** album. This is pretty real.’”
The results heard on “American Bang” are straight pedal-to-the-metal rockers with lead single “Wild & Young” getting attention at MTV2, MTVU, as well as on rock radio. In fact, Johnston said his dad recently was in Youngstown where he heard the song on the radio. This was good news to the band considering it’s opening for Saving Abel on Tuesday at the Covelli Centre.
Granted, it’s an uphill climb for any band these days to standout amongst the din of similar-sounding rock acts grabbing for platinum success, but the singer feels American Bang has something special to offer contemporary rock fans.
“I don’t think anybody plays American rock ’n’ roll better than we do, and that’s pretty much the bottom line,” Johnston said. “I think it’s neat to hear a band with melody and real songs, and we can really pull it off live. We are a live band, we play 300 shows a year and that’s a huge part of what we are. There’s not a lot of that out there, honestly. There’s a bunch of [expletive] out there, and we’re excited to change it a little bit.”
Granted such boisterous claims may seem clich d for a young and wide-eyed musician but that’s the mind-set Johnston better possess if American Band is going to succeed over the long haul. By the way, what exactly is an American Bang?
“I don’t know if it’s an actual thing,” Johnston laughed. “I think it’s just a mind-set for us. The way we got that name was, we were called Bang, Bang, Bang at one point and we wanted to really keep the awesomeness and hugeness of ‘Bang’ in our name but we wanted to make it a little bit bigger. So we sat in the hotel room for two days in Los Angeles before we came up with American Bang. I guess our first show was on the Fourth of July. And that’s kind of what we do, American rock ’n’ roll, so we thought it fits really well.”
OK, so just to confirm, there’s no relation to somewhat obscure ’80s hair metal act Bang Tango?
“Definitely no confusion there,” Johnston said. “It’s a completely different ball game.”