“I mean, you’re only going to get better. It was August of ’99, and the band–with no album or club guarantees–embarked on a cross-country tour, developing their tight, explosive live show by performing for strangers.
Whitley, who prefers to perform unfettered by a shirt, also revealed a natural talent for rock moves–kind of Axl meets Jim Dandy and then some. Siler and Quast juggled vocal duties, until the night Whitley stepped up to the mike to deliver a burnin’ rendition of Deep Purple’s “Speed King” and a new TCV frontman was born. Volume-wise, however, they were louder than ever: “We went from six to five, but added a drum kit,” Siler says, laughing. When Jones left the band, TCV found themselves in a lead-singer quandary. This mismatched kit comprised of different sized drums featured Whitley kicking away on two bass drums simultaneously. This is not to give short shrift to the “monster drum set” version of TCV, which featured Whitley playing an unholy amalgam of Quast’s drums and his own set. Quast moved back from Portland and started playing organ soon he was standing and playing a tom tom and percussion on some numbers. tours, they were a six-piece, with a vocalist named Malcolm, who was followed by Chris Jones. The best of INDY Week’s fiercely independent journalism about the Triangle delivered straight to your inbox.įor the band’s first two U.S. So–with their rep preceding them–TCV found clubs extending them the same welcome they’d experienced touring in Trucker and Regraped. “A lot of people liked Trucker,” Siler adds (including one Corey Parks, who went on to play a similar style of no hold-barred rawk in the Nugent-inspired Nashville Pussy). “We never actually even sent one single tape to a club,” Kumar admits, about booking the band’s first tour.
Having set a precedent for “takin’ it to the people,” the remaining members of Trucker decided to carry on. Rock is meant to be short,” fun, with every show ending up with explosions,’” Paul recalls, citing a particular McIlwaen project that featured a member who just stood onstage, punctuating the riffs with cries of “Hell yeah!” and “All right!” The McIlwaen rock credo influenced another young musician, a teenage Ryan Adams, to move to Raleigh, where they played together in the Patty Duke Syndrome. Jere’s thing was, ‘Indie rock is terrible.
“The whole thing for Trucker–and Jere’s idea of Trucker–was that it’s so much more important to go play shows than worry about putting out music. tours under their belt, a taste for the road and a bitchin’ former prison van (with grates and everything–bought at state auction) to head out on their rock odysseys. TCV are continuing a rock aesthetic they shared with late Trucker co-founder Jere McIlwaen, whose untimely death left Siler and Jamie Williams with three U.S. Hinton’s classic novel of teen alienation (Cherry was a sympathetic “Soc”). But it was from the ashes of Trucker that TCV emerged, named after a character in The Outsiders, S.E. Siler is a co-owner of Raleigh’s hip live music club Kings, while riffin’ guitarist Cheetie Kumar got firsthand experience with the music industry during her stint as band manager for Motocaster, among others. The Cherry Valence is a supergroup of sorts–they’ve all played in bands for years (back to Trucker, Regraped Erectus Monotone, King Dick, Royal Fux, The Werewolves and others). Siler also does vocal duty, sounding like a proud member of the KISS army Quast sounds like a cross between Lemmy and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, and Whitley sounds like Axl doing Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan or Humble Pie’s Steve Marriott.
#LOUDER THAN WORDS ROCK HALL FULL#
Two full drum kits are set up–drummers Whitley and Brian Quast both sing lead on some songs, and Quast also does serious damage on an ancient Crumar Traveler-1 keyboard (the band’s Vox Jaguar, after much road abuse, bit the dust … with a little help from the band). The band is practicing the aforementioned song, “The Clap” at a very non-pussified volume–a solid, slightly overdriven roar of sound heavier than bassist Paul Siler’s SVT rig. (From a room down the hall, you can hear Apollo Creedence’s punk bass riffs throbbing through the drywall.) The Cherry Valance are running through a set at their Raleigh practice space, located in a large industrial building that’s partially converted into band rooms. Drummer and sometimes frontman Nick Whitley has decided to thwack his mic stand with his stick–a surprisingly good substitute that cuts through three cranked (or “crunked,” in band lingo) vintage Ampeg amps. We’re in The Cherry Valence’s practice space and the cowbell is nowhere to be seen. “Think this’ll work?” asks the shirtless blond behind the drum kit.
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