Post by thomasallencummins on Apr 18, 2007 13:17:43 GMT -5
COCKPIT
By Tom Cummins – Guitar, Vocals, Songwriter
Dan Southard – Bass
Aaron Levin – Drums, Vocals
After Carol Jones left Multiple Choice Aaron and I found ourselves in familiar territory. Do we continue the band or give it up? Unlike the difficulties we faced when Mark Frierson departed Nerve Center, Aaron and I were spared having to wrestle with the question of who would become the lead singer etc. I had performed adequately as lead singer and guitarist and there seemed no need to change that part of our sound. The simplest thing to do was to replace Carol on bass. The process itself was more complex this time however. I had two friends that I wanted to join the band, Kevin Marks and Dan Southard. Dan had been learning to play guitar at the time. In order to get him involved I thought I might try to get him to join as a second guitarist. Kevin had no experience playing an instrument but he was willing to learn so we tried him out playing bass. After a couple of practices it seemed that playing bass just wasn’t something Kevin was really interested in so he eventually gave up the attempt. After trying other bass players we finally decided that the best thing to do was to get Dan to give up guitar and give bass a try. As it turned out it was the best thing that could have happened. Dan dove into role with enthusiasm and before long the band was moving forward again.
With the addition of Dan in place of Carol, the band immediately took on a different personality. We turned to a more aggressive sound inspired by a mix of influences by the Ramones, XTC, The Vapors and Oingo Boingo. This change inspired a change in the band’s name. We spent a period of time as Flying Fortress and Channel 101 but when the dust finally settled we chose a name that occurred to me from two sources. I’ve always had an interest in military aircraft and the lyrics and title from a song by XTC inspired the name Cockpit.
This new version of the band inspired me to write yet another group of songs that took our sound in a different direction. Though we continued to play a few Multiple Choice tunes, the way we played them was altered to fit our new personality. Definitive Cockpit songs included Blockade, I Say, Good Old Days, Folly War, John Is Getting More, The One Hand, Great Uncle, Tax Suicide, Little Loan, No Way and others. As Cockpit we explored and developed our sound and as musicians further developed our individual skills. Dan found his comfort zone on his new instrument and made each song his own. Aaron advanced beyond his already considerable talents and I continued to grow as a guitarist, writer and singer. Cockpit played a few times with varying degrees of success and there were few opportunities to make any worthwhile recordings of the music thanks to the lack of expendable funds. The end of Cockpit was more a matter of attitude change than any one course changing event. At one point I decided that I wanted our group to have more in
common with bands like U2 than the harder, punkier songs I had been listening to for so long. I began to write music that seemed to transform the band's sound into something that had a more atmospheric dimension. Oddly enough the single greatest influence that transformed my guitar sound came from the echo driven guitar work I heard from A Flock of Seagulls, though I admit that U2's guitarist, The Edge had an impact as well. My acquisition of a delay effect pedal for my guitar was probably the largest single reason why Cockpit made the change to Clear Frontier.
The link below is to the song I SAY
www.mediamax.com/clearfrontier/Hosted/03-I%20Say.mp3
See Clear Frontier 1
By Tom Cummins – Guitar, Vocals, Songwriter
Dan Southard – Bass
Aaron Levin – Drums, Vocals
After Carol Jones left Multiple Choice Aaron and I found ourselves in familiar territory. Do we continue the band or give it up? Unlike the difficulties we faced when Mark Frierson departed Nerve Center, Aaron and I were spared having to wrestle with the question of who would become the lead singer etc. I had performed adequately as lead singer and guitarist and there seemed no need to change that part of our sound. The simplest thing to do was to replace Carol on bass. The process itself was more complex this time however. I had two friends that I wanted to join the band, Kevin Marks and Dan Southard. Dan had been learning to play guitar at the time. In order to get him involved I thought I might try to get him to join as a second guitarist. Kevin had no experience playing an instrument but he was willing to learn so we tried him out playing bass. After a couple of practices it seemed that playing bass just wasn’t something Kevin was really interested in so he eventually gave up the attempt. After trying other bass players we finally decided that the best thing to do was to get Dan to give up guitar and give bass a try. As it turned out it was the best thing that could have happened. Dan dove into role with enthusiasm and before long the band was moving forward again.
With the addition of Dan in place of Carol, the band immediately took on a different personality. We turned to a more aggressive sound inspired by a mix of influences by the Ramones, XTC, The Vapors and Oingo Boingo. This change inspired a change in the band’s name. We spent a period of time as Flying Fortress and Channel 101 but when the dust finally settled we chose a name that occurred to me from two sources. I’ve always had an interest in military aircraft and the lyrics and title from a song by XTC inspired the name Cockpit.
This new version of the band inspired me to write yet another group of songs that took our sound in a different direction. Though we continued to play a few Multiple Choice tunes, the way we played them was altered to fit our new personality. Definitive Cockpit songs included Blockade, I Say, Good Old Days, Folly War, John Is Getting More, The One Hand, Great Uncle, Tax Suicide, Little Loan, No Way and others. As Cockpit we explored and developed our sound and as musicians further developed our individual skills. Dan found his comfort zone on his new instrument and made each song his own. Aaron advanced beyond his already considerable talents and I continued to grow as a guitarist, writer and singer. Cockpit played a few times with varying degrees of success and there were few opportunities to make any worthwhile recordings of the music thanks to the lack of expendable funds. The end of Cockpit was more a matter of attitude change than any one course changing event. At one point I decided that I wanted our group to have more in
common with bands like U2 than the harder, punkier songs I had been listening to for so long. I began to write music that seemed to transform the band's sound into something that had a more atmospheric dimension. Oddly enough the single greatest influence that transformed my guitar sound came from the echo driven guitar work I heard from A Flock of Seagulls, though I admit that U2's guitarist, The Edge had an impact as well. My acquisition of a delay effect pedal for my guitar was probably the largest single reason why Cockpit made the change to Clear Frontier.
The link below is to the song I SAY
www.mediamax.com/clearfrontier/Hosted/03-I%20Say.mp3
See Clear Frontier 1
