Heavy Metal youngsters Album prove that good music still often does come from the last place you might look.
Ed. note: This article first appeared in the Fall 2009 Youngstown Pulse.
Youngstown Pulse Magazine Editor
ROGERS — Failing Metallica and the San Francisco Bay area thrash explosion, it almost always seems as if metal’s best acts tend to spawn from depths of whereabouts unknown.
You’ve seen the pictures.
Guys in secluded forests, usually bearded and in flannel. Sometimes it gets even more carried away with swords and shields. In Finland and Sweden there’s the face makeup that makes King Diamond blush and almost always loads and loads of black leather.
So really, it should come to no surprise to you at all that local rockers Album hail from a giant, wooded hill in Rogers, Ohio where the gap in technology spans from turntables straight to wireless laptops — literally. The interview took place in a garage led to by a gravel driveway overlooking mountainous terrain — where Black Sabbath, Grand Funk and Deep Purple are as equally as important as Manowar, Wu Tang Clan and Huey Lewis and the News. The cooler is filled with Milwaukee’s Best. The scents of the country are in the air. And somehow, someway, this group of 20-somethings are pulling it off to ever-increasing success in Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland, Kent and beyond.
“This is our life,” said singer/guitarist Winfield Dray. “Living here. If we didn’t live here, there would not be an Album. The area defines who we are.”
It wasn’t always dark brooding riffs punctuated by spasmadic bursts of thrash and rock for the trio, however. Brothers and rhythm section Jason and Josh Hopkins got their musical start in the very poppy Rydells some dozen years ago. But when the band made the switch to rock, as the group progressed, the pop influence began to show its face again.
“It’s more of a rock ‘n’ roll essence,” drummer Josh says of the band’s newest material. “It’s the pop in us. It’s how Sabbath can still play a slow riff, but it still get stuck in your head. It’s not the same song over and over again. We like turning it into our own thing.”
Bassist Jason agreed.
“It was always something we were always holding onto,” he said. “We got to a point where we couldn’t write pop-punk. We wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll songs.”
The band has done just that, having released “Album, The Album,” both on CD and of course, vinyl.
It seethes 70s riff-rock, but even though the band knows there’s somewhat of a resurgence in that format in the states, they don’t plan on being pigeonholed as a stoner rock or even 70s-style rock act.
“We really like pop music,” Dray said. “A lot of people say ‘if it’s not dark and evil we want nothing to do with it.’ And that’s just really stupid. Rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be a good time.”
Newer material showcases the band’s ability to play thrash and its increasing tenacity for writing hooks and entertaining more and more with its live show.
“I have no fear if we play in front of 100 people we’re gonna win over 75 or 80,” Jason said. “We love playing loud. Sometimes we’re having more fun than the crowd we’re playing to.”
Dray insists that anyone and everyone can connect with Album and its music.
“Everybody knows a classic rock tune,” he said. “We just kind of remind people that still exists. There’s no lack of fans of rock ‘n’ roll. Typically if people don’t realize they’re fans of rock ‘n’ roll, they hear us and they are afterwards.”
As the band moves forward, it’s certainly clear that playing any and every show especially in the Youngstown area may have been one formula at the start, but they want to take things a step further. Opening gigs for Valient Thorr and the Monotonix have them going in the right direction. Not to mention the DIY attitude of anything and everything online. The group has done many humorous clips that have popped up all over the internet. They demo nearly every song themselves and have a growing fan base worldwide. All with a computer on a big-ass hill in Rogers.
“If we are right here in five years, there probably won’t be an Album,” Jason said. “If we’re not expanding, we’re not doing what we set out to do. Knowing that the people we respect like us feels good, and we appreciate that. Those are the people that you want to win over. But the biggest challenge to playing music, is playing music.”
Dray puts it another way.
“I think we’re like rock ‘n’ roll doctors,” he said. “And the crowd is in good hands.”
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