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Give us a listing of your band members, instruments played by each and a run down on what you have produced and accomplished to this point. Also tell us how you got started playing, what year, what influenced you, who helped you get started, who taught you to play, or if you are self taught, what the first club or party you played at, etc. “1919 currently is Tom Bennett (guitar, piano, lyrics). Dustin Greer (vox/lyrics). Carrie Jurkovac (back up vox). Paul Lapenski (bass). Tim Jackson (percussion). All of the members have an extensive musical background. Tom has a bachelors degree in concert piano and has been in several local bands over the years, I have also been in many bands including The Lesser Blessed which was based in Orlando. During that time we played a lot in and around central Florida including my favorite show @ Visage opening for the Electric Hellfire Club and Christian Death (Valors). Carrie is a Classically trained Opera singer with two seasons at the Arizona Opera. She has also been in several bands out west. Paul and Tim have been in Jacksonville's music scene for sometime working with Tom on some of his projects and many other things. I have been singing my entire life it seems but I only started taking it serious since I was maybe 21-22 because people always told me that I could not sing. I guess this was due to the fact my vocal range was very low. For a long time when I was young if you couldn't scream like David Lee Roth you didn't have a chance. But my desire to sing finally overcame the complexes I had about singing. As far as influences go; David Bowie has always been a hero to me as well as Nick Cave and Edward Ka-spel (Legendary Pink Dots).” What's your favorite show you have played to date? “The best show I think to date has been the "Culturati" show at Theatre Jacksonville. We have only played a few shows because we have a desire to make every show special. We have no desire to over expose our selves by having a show every week at just any venue.” What do you (or other members) do in your time away from the band? “Tom and I have pretty busy lives, we have careers out side of the band. Tom works in the corporate world and I am the Technical Director for Theater Jacksonville.” Has being based in Jacksonville benefited your career more or less? "Being in Jacksonville in my opinion so far has been a good thing because we were both born here so we have friends in various walks of life who have supported the project. I am a supporter of the ideas now being used to get this city up and on the map. The only thing I see that is lacking in J-ville is support for local music but I'm sure that will change when the rest of the city gets on board.” How do you personally define success? “Success to me is a very personal question because I think that it is one of the most important things in life. To me its not necessarily about money or fame but to be able to due the things in life you were meant to do, to reach self actualization to a point. We have decided that we will not do any music just to sell an album or get a contract we both have good jobs and are happy. So if we write music it's for the music and nothing else.” How would you best describe your bands style? “That is a question we often get and probably the hardest one to answer. I have a hard time with this because we have never tried to fit our music into any category. We write what we feel and there for it seems to have manifested itself into a pure form of self expression. To describe it I would first say that it is based a lot on emotion. It's dark but melodic, beautiful and very personal. Some members of the band have classical training so that comes out in a way that brings a certain element of class. I enjoy the dynamics and even excesses of life so this is probably the reason our music is sometimes described as ‘dark.’” What is the best advice you have ever received and who was it from? “Well, it seems wherever I go someone is always offering their advice, mostly unsolicited, but the latest piece of advice was given to me by Frank Barnes of ‘Can do productions’ the night of the ‘Culturati’ show. I don't remember the exact words he used but basically he said to "jump left, Jump right, or get hit by the car racing at you." This was a very wise point of view. Thanks Frank. Oh and Frank, why were you trying to run me over anyways?” |
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