Small Brown Bike

With a new EP out this month, two headlining tours and a new album in the works, Small Brown Bike has kept things rolling since it returned from a three-month hiatus to perform at the final show held at The Space in March. The band had taken some time off after guitarist Travis Dopp injured his back last year, but with Dopp up and rocking again, Small Brown Bike is ready to ride coast to coast with a batch of new songs.

"It's probably been one of the busiest times we've ever had because we took such a long break," said vocalist/guitarist Mike Reed.

Small Brown Bike began in 1997 when Mike Reed and his brother Ben teamed up with their longtime friends Dopp and original drummer Dan Jaquint, who now plays in Lansing's Charlevoix. That lineup recorded the band's debut, 1999's Our Own Wars, before Jaquint left in 2001 and was replaced by current drummer Jeff Gensterblum.

Since then, Small Brown Bike has released its follow-up, 2001's Dead Reckoning, while touring with such bands as Saves The Day, Sparta, Cave-In, Hot Water Music and Pretty Girls Make Graves. They even spent part of last summer playing select dates on the Vans Warped Tour.

More recently, Small Brown Bike - having wrapped up a west coast tour with Charlevoix and Choke last month - is on the road once again, this time heading east with longtime friends and collaborators The Casket Lottery and solo acoustic performer Rocky Votolato, formerly of Waxwing.

"All last year we spent touring with bands that we love," Reed said. "Now we can pick and choose who we want to be on the road with."

In addition to playing shows with The Casket Lottery, Reed said the two bands will be performing material off their 2002 self-titled collaborative EP, which the two bands premiered when they played at The Space in March.

"That show was kind of like just the test to see," Reed said. "We all hadn't had a chance to sit down and practice together, so it was kind of like, 'All right, let's go for it.' I think we're going to try and learn almost every song that we collaborate on for [the tour] and play at least a couple, two, three, four of them."

Before heading out on the two tours, Small Brown Bike spent nearly a full week in the studio recording and mixing its new five-song EP, Nail Yourself To The Ground, due out this month (May 2003).

"It's funny, because our last full-length, Dead Reckoning, was recorded and mixed in seven days, and that was eleven songs," Reed said. "We just kind of made a decision to try to take more time in the studio and pay more attention to the small details and stuff instead of just trying to rush through the whole thing. Because that's how we've always done it, just boom, boom, rush through and do everything. So the new EP I think shows that we took more time and there [are] just more textures."

Small Brown Bike also found time to write and record a new full-length album as well, which Reed said the band will begin mixing early this month before heading out on the road.

"Some of them we've been playing for like a year now," Reed said about the new songs. "It feels good to finally be able to put them to tape. I think we're going to try to play at least two, three or four new songs on both of the tours, just to keep them going and keep everything tight, because we forget songs quick if we don't play them."

The as-yet untitled set is tentatively scheduled to be released around September via the band's new home, Lookout! Records, which may help shoot the band's first video.

"To me it feels like a natural progression," Reed said about how the band's new songs compare to the band's previous material. "I think there's more attention to textures. Literally, I think there [are] eight different guitar amps used on the recording right now, so there [are] going to be a lot more different sounds. We've been using some more pedals and stuff."

How does the band look back on the Michigan music scene that got it to where it is today?

"One thing that Michigan has always had is that there've always been bands that aren't really doing what might be the hottest thing," Reed said. "Even though Detroit's getting all this attention through The White Stripes and just rock, there're still tons of different bands that are doing well in Michigan that haven't done anything like that. There're always bands doing a bunch of different kinds of things. The potpourri of the different sounds, you know." -- Eric Mitts

June 2003