Biography
Take three prolific musicians with impressive credentials, throw in a longtime friendship, add a dose of opportunity and you get Acetate.
That's the result of what's basically a side project for three Athens musicians who just can't help but make as much music as they can. What you end up with is a rock 'n' roll band that's a throwback to the good old days when rock was fun and nothing mattered but the music.
Acetate is Dave Schools, Kevin Sweeney and Ben Mize, a local supergroup of sorts. Schools is the bass player for Widespread Panic. Sweeney is best known as the wailing guitar player with Hayride and has his hands in numerous musical projects. And Mize spent the better part of the last decade behind the drum kit for the Counting Crows.
When Mize left the Counting Crows more than a year ago, he returned to Athens and started jamming with his old friends in Schools' basement. Schools, who was on a break between Panic tours, says, ''Ben started coming over and we just started playing. … And the next thing we knew, there were three original songs that just sort of happened.''
The end product is ''This Band Makes Me Feel,'' a self-produced CD featuring 12 songs that personify power pop and rock and is a do-it-yourself lesson on how to record. Though the band isn't planning to tour in support of the CD, Acetate will play around town when the circumstances are right.
Acetate isn't the primary side project for any of its members. Schools, on a yearlong sabbatical from Panic, plays with Jerry Joseph, Layng Martine and J Mascis. In addition to Hayride, Sweeney is a member of The Sunshine Fix, which has a CD due out soon. Mize recently released his first solo effort, ''Nantahala.''
So this is just for fun? ''That's the whole point,'' Schools says.
As for Acetate's sound, ''I'd just describe it as diverse,'' Sweeney says. ''There's so many different influences that each person brings to the table and so much in common that you don't want it to sound like the same thing all the way through.''
''One thing we did intentionally,'' Schools adds, ''was to try to come up with things that we could blend a really cool hook in with a pretty heavy riff and rhythm. That's kind of different. That's cool.''
''I really love (Acetate),'' Mize said during an earlier interview. ''It's really the most fun I've had in a long time. We really like each other and play every day when we can in a black-light basement and it's got the energy of learning Judas Priest covers in high school. … Every other time we practice I expect a truant officer to bust in and tell me to get back to school. I can't believe we're getting away with doing this.''
In fact, it's kind of a jab at the music industry. ''There's just so many reasons to not have a label right now,'' Schools says. ''First and foremost, the music industry has no idea what's happening, what their new media will be or how they will continue to exploit artists and keep three sets of books and all the things they do. It just seemed kind of silly to cut demos and shop them in a traditional way. This whole band is trying to sort of wave a DIY thing. It didn't cost us anything, especially with the process we used to make the record.''
The drums, bass and original guitar were recorded on tape at Chase Park Tranduction Studio, Sweeney says. He then took those basic tracks and worked on them last summer in Schools' basement studio, affectionately known as Featherwood Hospital, while Schools was on tour with Panic. When Schools returned, he added his vocals and they mixed it with Andy Baker, also of Chase Park.
''I think we made a really pro-sounding record for basically next to nothing,'' Schools says. ''The great thing about having done it ourselves is that it's all paid for. No one's going to have a hook in us: 'We'll give you the money to record your record and then you sell your soul.'''
Despite being a side project, there is a future for Acetate. The band already has a handful of songs under its belt for another CD, and members say they see it as a way to grow musically.
''Every time we do something, like writing in a genre that's unfamiliar to us, it hones our skills,'' Schools says. ''You know, every time Kevin can engineer some recordings, he gets better at it. Every time we can practice singing three-part harmony we're going to get better at it. Every time we play, we get better at the songs. Every time we get together and jam we go in a direction that we can go in.
''But basically it's a boy's club,'' he adds. ''We're three friends who have known each other for more than 10 years and this is really cool. It's like our significant others don't really mind because they know that there's something creative happening and the heaviest drug we're going to do is coffee.'' Schools and Sweeney laugh. ''Were a coffee-oriented band.''
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, March 18, 2004
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