Under the Influence

Alright, so for those of you thinking that today was going to be the post where we introduce the band members and all that, well, you’re wrong! haha We’ve decided instead to go straight on to talking about each of our musical interests, and how they influence us in our music! We’ll elaborate on this topic more as we go, but today we just want to give you the 5 musical influences that have impacted each of us the most, and how we go about writing our own brand of music based on those things that interest us. Sound cool? (and don’t worry, we’ll introduce ourselves formally with a video post here in a couple of weeks! so stay tuned for that..)  Ok, well let’s get to it!  Starting with our top 5 musical influences:

Ross:
- Dream Theater
- Metallica
- Rush
- Eric Johnson
- Progressive music from the ’60s til now (from Yes & Pink Floyd to Tool and Porcupine Tree!)

Andy:
- The Beatles
- The Police
- Steve Smith
- Brannen Temple
- Gregg Bissonette

Chris:
- Led Zeppelin
- Rush
- Dream Theater
- Cliff Burton
- Megadeth

So those are our influences in a nutshell (again we’ll elaborate on those later), but the real question is how we USE these influences creatively, without sounding like a copycat band, or like some confused conglomeration of all of the above, with no voice of our own; two categories that probably 90% of all bands fall into!  Well, our answer to that is simple: WE PLAY WHAT WE LIKE TO HEAR!  That’s it. If we only liked to listen to say, Metallica, then we’d just strictly be a Metallica cover band! Or the Police, or Beatles, or etc., etc., etc… and you get the idea.

When we get in the music room however, our main objective is to bring in ideas that we all like individually, and come out with one idea that we all like collectively.  So with each indivdual writing his own riffs, lyrics, concepts, etc. that he likes, he is bringing in his own set of influences. But when we all get together to hash out parts that we’ve all brought to the table, what we strive to come out with is something unique and personal to Life Stage; something that couldn’t be represented by all or even just one of the above. And of course, when we do, we hope that all of you guys enjoy it just as much as we do, and can appreciate the time we’ve put into it!

All that being said, you now know why we’ve chosen this topic today – we want to let you guys in and take a look at what we do on a personal level, in hopes that you’ll return the favor with some feedback, and your own personal influences that make you who you are! So let us hear it! What are you under the influence of?