“If you're doing what you love with best friends, working hard at it and seeing it pay off, well, I don’t think it can really get any better”, explains Cavashawn’s lead singer and songwriter Scott Salmon. As the Chicago 4-piece preps for the release of their new EP Cavashawn (White), the guys are enjoying themselves. It’s confidence they’ve earned by putting the time in. It’s an assurance that comes from spending dozens of months building a committed fan-base, years honing their musical craft, and a lifetime studying the rock greats. “The Beatles are the foundation for everything, as far as we’re concerned”, explains Salmon, who spent hundreds of obsessive hours this past year polishing his songwriting chops. “We’ve worn the needle of our record player thin playing Meet The Beatles, Abbey Road and everything in between. They set an incredible standard for melody, stardom, and experimentation that never ceases to amaze us.”
This is a quartet that knows their musical roots. Salmon’s classic, infectious melodies, accompanied by Chris Hellmann’s soaring guitars and the pounding, uber-tight rhythm section duo of Benton Kubicki (bass) and Jesse Feister (drums) create a modern pop/rock sound with a nod towards the past. While the music is clearly steeped in the tradition of great Beatles-worshiping rock groups like Badfinger, Cheap Trick, Oasis, and Weezer., this may or may not be lost on the growing hoards of teenagers pushing their way to the front at concerts in cities across the Midwest. After walking on stage to a sea of screaming girls at a recent headlining Chicago date, Salmon went as far as to jokingly introduce the band as “The Jonas Brothers”.
But unlike the assembled “top-down” pop stars of the Playstation Generation, Cavashawn has made a name for themselves in the Midwest by becoming one of the hardest working, most effective social networking bands in the country, amassing a staggering number of fans across a variety of platforms, MySpacing, Facebooking, Twittering, and blogging their way to notoriety. The group is persistent and driven, and major media outlets are starting to take notice. MySpace recently named Cavashawn one of the top unsigned bands in the country, and their impressive work ethic has been praised by both The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. SPIN Magazine included the band in their Best of the Chicago Music Scene online feature, and Milwaukee’s massive music festival Summerfest named them one of the festival’s emerging artists of 2009, featuring them prominently on their widely distributed festival compilation disk.
While these are hefty accomplishments for what has barely been 12 months, Cavashawn’s roots run a bit deeper. After years of cutting their teeth playing cities and college towns across the Midwest under various names, the band moved from college-town Ohio to Chicago in late 2007. They got to work immediately, recording over the winter and releasing the 4-song Cavashawn (Black) in March of 2008. After a year of toughing it out on the road and building fans across the Midwest, the music managed to find it’s way to the West Coast. When their tunes caught the ear of Santa Monica-based producer Jim Wirt (Incubus, Hoobastank, Jack’s Mannequin) the band headed to California and recorded their forthcoming EP Cavashawn (White). The result is an upbeat pop/rock gem full of sing-along choruses and big guitars, making it a perfect succinct summer soundtrack.
Despite a healthy buzz and what is undoubtedly a blossoming future in the making, Cavashawn seems content to keep working hard and enjoy the ride. “We started doing this together when we were teenagers in high school, too young to care about careers or where it would go. And somehow we’re still at it”, explains drummer Feister. “If you follow your gut, you never know where life will take you.”
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