Artist description 3 piece modern rock band dinner with sampled cream sauce and punky brews

Music Style can't stop the rock

Musical Influences radiohead,soul coughing,soundgarden,faith no more,beck,tool,

Similar Artists the offspring of beck and radiohead filter(ed) thru therapy? & incubus

Artist History Stranded in the midwest, a trio dares to break the mold... Enamel is born.

Group Members Kevin Wasmer - vocals, guitarzez, noises Micah Hattaway - bassage, backing vocals, samplz Chad Sibert - acoustic & digital drumz, percussion

Albums 'Cleaner Than Ever' - released December 15, 2001

Press Reviews Enamel paints quick route to success The Pantagraph (Bloomington-Normal) Sound Thursday, June 28, 2001 By DAN CRAFT Pantagraph entertainment editor BLOOMINGTON -- They're just a year old, but look what's happened to Enamel. And we don't mean the stuff on your -- or their -- teeth. The Bloomington-Springfield rockers have won themselves a 30-minute slot on the Vans Warped Tour, the day-long traveling punk/alt-rock fest coming to suburban Chicago's Tweeter Center July 15. Right there amid the likes of 311, Rancid, the Misfits and the Vandals will be a trio, who, a year ago, hadn't ever played together. Who didn't even know each other. And yet they beat out more than a hundred-odd entries in an Internet contest that attracted rock groups from around the state. That total included a sizable chunk of competition from Chicago, breeding ground for untold dozens of hungry, wannabe-famous bands. A year ago, says Micah Hattaway, the self-described "alternative post-rock" trio's bass player and backing vocalist, he and his two bandmates -- lead singer/guitarist Kevin Wasmer and drummer/percussionist Chad Sibert -- were in musical limbo. "The three of us had been floating around Central Illinois for at least eight years," Hattaway says of the trio's musical past. Among the most recent band credits was the cover group Nathan Jr., which featured Hattaway and was a familiar fixture on the B-N club scene; Laughingboy, which featured Wasmer; and Swirl, which featured Sibert. Though they didn't know each other a year ago, they were all seeking the same conclusions to their musical questions, including the Big One: Is it possible for a homegrown rock band to succeed on their own song-writing terms, without resorting to that club standby, the cover version? Hattaway, who works for State Farm Insurance in Bloomington, began casting about through cyberspace, eventually linking up with Wasmer, who lives in Springfield and works in Bloomington, and Sibert, who lives and works in Springfield. Through Internet ads, e-mails and exchanged tapes, the musicians decided they were on the same creative wavelength. "It's the first time I've ever done this, and I thought, 'What am I getting myself into? I haven't even seen these guys. I don't know what they're doing...' It's weird when you start a band and you're not friends with anybody to begin with." But that anonymity soon dissipated as the three men, ranging between the ages of 26 and 30, immediately felt comfortable around each other during the initial jam sessions, "sifting," as their official party line goes, "through the wreckage of rock, thrash, punk and '80s funk, then welding the shiny pieces together in a new sculpture of sound." It helps that "we have common musical influences," say Hattaway, who rattles off such influential names as Radiohead, Tool, Foo Fighters, Faith No More and Live. Hattaway describes the Enamel aesthetic as a fusion of styles: "Hooky guitars ... different sounds ... not meat-and-potatoes rock 'n' roll. We're going to have dance-sounding drums ... acid house drums ... we like to mess with drum and bass sounds. And there's strong vocal singing, not yelling. I think the music market is a bit tired of the yelling. It doesn't require much talent or thought. We just prefer singing a little bit more." A year later, the division of labor works something like this: Wasmer is the "primary songwriter," with Hattaway and Sibert "assisting in the song creation process. Kevin is a taskmaster with what he wants out of a song," Hattaway says. "And he's pushed me and Chad to become better at the craft." Before the band began going public with live dates (just recently), they honed their song-writing prowess, producing a four-track demo CD, "Sexy Wreck," which will be followed by a nine-song full CD in July, "Cleaner Than Ever." The lead track on "Sexy Wreck," "Settling," is the song that was entered earlier this year in a contest sponsored by Ernie Ball Music Man, a sponsor of the Vans Warped Tour. The prize: a slot on the Warped Tour's July 15 Chicago date. After Enamel uploaded its entry song and a band bio several months ago, "I kind of forgot about it," says Hattaway. "Then we got a call about being one of the four bands from Illinois who were picked to play." They were told that, from Chicago alone, "hundreds of bands had entered." Needless to say, "We're happy to be the mid-state band who gets to represent us there." And, because they've won the contest, "it's pressure-free -- we just go out there and do our songs." In a perfect world, an A&R radio man would be in the audience, like what he hears. And he should, says Hattaway: "The show is very tight and very energetic. The hard work is done -- the great songs are written. And we're ready for people to hear them."

Additional Info it ain't right it ain't right but it feels so real

Location Springfield, Illinois - USA

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