A Cool Stick takes acoustic, hip-hop to a new level
Andrew Zaleski
Issue date: 9/1/09 Section: Arts & Society
By early 2009, four of the five group members - O'Brien, Fitch, Floyd, and James Hughes, 22, who puts the acoustic in A Cool Stick - were in place. They needed a drummer.
"I'm the type of person who likes to be safe about things," says Brian Aranda, 22. "James came to my house and he was pitching this whole thing. I didn't say a word, and my friend was like, 'Aranda plays drums, and he's really good.' I was just like, 'Let's just do it.' And it's by far one of the better decisions I've made. It's nice to just throw yourself a curve ball and just do something."
Just doing something has been on the front of A Cool Stick's mind since they won the March Battle of the Bands. Finishing recording their EP is the first step, as record companies in New York City and Philadelphia have begun to show interest in the group and have asked for more music.
Aside from the recording, the band has been using the summer months to polish up their live show. The group rehearses religiously, meticulously plotting and planning out their stage performance during practice to prevent any glitches while on stage.
Drawing from a plethora of samples and originals, A Cool Stick's songs aren't "sloppily thrown together," says O'Brien. Fitch, the group's beat producer, constructs the group's songs based on the beat behind the song, giving instructions and suggestions as to how each instrument should be played during certain parts of the beat. Then, as a whole band, each instrument's role in each song is scrutinized until the band is satisfied with the end result.
"When you play real tight like that and all your drops are in sync, you hit the audience on a more subconscious level," says Fitch. "The gen pop [general population] won't recognize that anything happened there. But they'll just feel more safe, more comfortable with a band there that's really hittin' everything at the same time, and it's just more pleasing. That's why we're tight. We're not tight to feel mechanical."
"I'm the type of person who likes to be safe about things," says Brian Aranda, 22. "James came to my house and he was pitching this whole thing. I didn't say a word, and my friend was like, 'Aranda plays drums, and he's really good.' I was just like, 'Let's just do it.' And it's by far one of the better decisions I've made. It's nice to just throw yourself a curve ball and just do something."
Just doing something has been on the front of A Cool Stick's mind since they won the March Battle of the Bands. Finishing recording their EP is the first step, as record companies in New York City and Philadelphia have begun to show interest in the group and have asked for more music.
Aside from the recording, the band has been using the summer months to polish up their live show. The group rehearses religiously, meticulously plotting and planning out their stage performance during practice to prevent any glitches while on stage.
Drawing from a plethora of samples and originals, A Cool Stick's songs aren't "sloppily thrown together," says O'Brien. Fitch, the group's beat producer, constructs the group's songs based on the beat behind the song, giving instructions and suggestions as to how each instrument should be played during certain parts of the beat. Then, as a whole band, each instrument's role in each song is scrutinized until the band is satisfied with the end result.
"When you play real tight like that and all your drops are in sync, you hit the audience on a more subconscious level," says Fitch. "The gen pop [general population] won't recognize that anything happened there. But they'll just feel more safe, more comfortable with a band there that's really hittin' everything at the same time, and it's just more pleasing. That's why we're tight. We're not tight to feel mechanical."
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