Audiences will get Anchored at Altar Bar

Audiences will get Anchored at Altar Bar

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/04/21/audiences-will-get-anchored-altar-bar-0

Anchored
Altar Bar
April 25, 6:30 p.m.
$17
(412) 263-2877

The band Anchored markets itself as a band that plays “dirty Southern modern rock,” but the newly formed five-person band doesn’t feel that’s the best way to describe its music.

“It’s Southern pop rock, pretty much,” singer Brandan Narrell said. “They put dirty in because of the first single [titled “Dirty in Texas”]. But it’s a clean record with no swearing. It’s about happy and kind of chill songs where you could be on a boat fishing or in a club.”

Anchored is Southern-oriented in many ways, according to Narrell. The band formed in Texas nine months ago, gaining support through radio shows before beginning its first tour.
The band will perform at the Altar Bar along with the groups Saliva, October and Bishop Clay as part of its kick-off tour.

But Dallas, where the crowds were especially fun, had plenty to offer the band, Narrell said.

“It’s always a wild show,” he said. “All the bands around [Dallas] are super hardworking and nice. With some scenes you never know, but I love all the guys and bands.”

As Anchored tours and brings its music to other cities, the members hope to discover welcoming music scenes other than that of their home-base city. The band brings plenty of its personality on tour to welcome new fans.

“At some shows we do a Texas BBQ so we can get closer to the fans,” Narrell said, explaining he hopes the band will have cookouts and grill by the tour buses so that fans can come speak directly to them and “just have fun” getting to know the members.

The tour will also include quirky merchandise that anyone can buy, including stylish undergarments and condoms, Narrell said. It’s the merchandise and music that will give the band a strong financial base.

“For every guy in the band, music is our life,” Narrell said. “It’s cliché, but it’s true for us. We can’t go away until we get this out. That’s why we try to sell all of our merchandise as cheap as possible, and we also care about the fashion. You may not like the band, but you may like the products.”

The band’s tour will also be the only place to find its new album for at least three more weeks. The album is actually the reason the band exists, according to Narrell.

“It just sort of happened,” Narrell said about the band’s formation. “I wrote the whole album about a year ago. The [other members] came in after-the-fact. The band was created because of the record.”

And since he was composing and writing it, Narrell’s life became the focus of “Listen To This.”

“I wrote the album based off of life at home,” Narrell said. “This time I did it in a home studio. So I was in the room 12 hours a day for a month. Every word on the album is true, and it happened because of my daughters or my wife. I tried to put a twist on it to where you can relate it to anything.”

The stories about relationships and everyday life are all stories that could happen to anyone or anything, Narrell said.

“This album wasn’t that hard to write, because for three years I wanted to do an album like this,” Narrell said, explaining he used to perform in a band, Advent, that sounded more like Drowning Pool.

Now that the album is composed and recorded, the band is on tour for the first time. All of the members enjoy similar things, and although they currently spend their weekends on the tour buses, they would rather cook, go fishing or go out with other bands, Narrell said.

“Everybody’s got humor,” he said. “You’ll see that [if you see us perform]. We’re just a bunch of good old boys that like to play music.”