The rock ‘n’ roll power trio Death Saddle Syndicate is bringing its own take on the rock ‘n’ roll power trio to the Cellar on Treadwell in Hamden this Friday — joining ranks with three other power trios from around the state with the goals of melting faces and just possibly giving a taste of where rock ‘n’ roll is headed in 2020.
The New Haven-based bands Death Saddle Syndicate, Half Dragon, and Pinto Graham will be joined by the Stamford-based Hosemen for a four-band bill that, depending on how you think of it, took years or decades to bring together.
“Our band was a couple years in the making,” said guitarist John Leonard of Death Saddle Syndicate. He and bassist Jedd Chlebowski went through UConn together and played in bands in the late 1990s. Both also became public-school music teachers. Leonard is a band director in Madison and Chlebowski in Wallingford. As a result, they kept running into each other at inter-school music events.
“We would talk shop, and talk about what musicians talk about,” Leonard said. Part of that talk: “Let’s play together sometime.” That talk persisted. Leonard played bass in No Line North. Chlebowski “was busy doing cover bands and gun-for-hire stuff,” Leonard said. “We were both in a place where we wanted a fresh project, something new.” But both were busy enough that “it took us at least three years, maybe four, and we finally said let’s make this happen.”
That was in 2016. “The missing piece was a drummer,” Leonard said. And an idea occurred to him.
“My first year teaching in Madison in 2003 I had this seventh-grade drummer who was a monster. He just had this spark and this conception of drumming that was super-mature. He knew all the greats — he knew his drummers, he knew his bands. To this day, he’s still one of the top musicians I’d ever worked with.”
Derek Dudek
That was Michael Davis-Penta. “We always kept in contact,” Leonard said, as Davis-Penta went through school. Then Davis-Penta went off to college. He continued to play. He joined the Air Force reserve and is now a firefighter.
“I said to Jedd, ‘I know this kid, and he’s an adult now, and he’s insane. He’s a singing drummer. He’s like Neil Peart and Chris Cornell and Layne Staley rolled into one.” As it happened, Davis-Penta was also ready to move back to the area after spending time out West.
“That’s how we came together as a group,” Leonard said. “We just started operating as a trio and never even considered needing to add anybody else.”
“I’ve always loved trios,” Leonard continued. “You need to cover your instrument but expand beyond it. You need to be creative.” As a guitarist, “you have to be a rhythm, player, you have to play lead, you have to create texture, and you have to do it all at the same time.”
Rock ‘n’ roll has nearly 70 years of history under its belt, and the trio has been a constant throughout it, Elvis’s first hit was recorded with the trio of him, guitarist Scotty Moore, and Bill Black. Cream, arguably rock’s first supergroup, was a trio, and the form continued through Nirvana and Green Day. But “if I had to pick a single point of reference, an initial beacon, it would be Hendrix. He completely smashed all the boundaries of what his instrument could do.”
“I have studied Hendrix up and down. It’s been a 30-year pursuit for me,” Leonard added. That attitude extends to rock music in general. “I think it’s absolutely critical that you look at the history and the development, and you study that and emulate it,” Leonard said. “You need to spend time with these styles, feel what these artists have accomplished and what they’ve done to create their own sound. Once you have that vocabulary, you can be functional. And then you can put your own take on it.”
So Death Saddle Syndicate plays rock with one eye on history and the other on the present. “We incorporate technology. Mike is into vocal effects, and he controls that while he plays,” Leonard said. “I really try to find ways to expand my sound, and Jed’s going that way with the bass — going into looping, synth applications, and MIDI.”
“But at the core of it,” Leonard said, “all three of us have embraced how important each of our roles are to keep the songs interesting and exciting, and on the rails. We’re just following our noses, in a way. We have a sound in our head, an idea, but it’s from a pretty well-researched standpoint. We have a huge range of influences, like any good musician does, and it’s all that knowledge that allows you to be innovative.”
The Power Of Three
“It’s pretty safe to say that every one of those trios really wants to be a trio,” Leonard said of the Cellar lineup.
The Hosemen — Anthony Quinn Carpanzano on guitar and vocals, Brien Adams on bass, and Wade McManus on drums — have developed a sound that’s both “alternative” and “melodic,” Leonard said. “They’re not particularly heavy, but they’ve got the grit when they need it.”
Half Dragon — that’s Jeff Abelli on guitar and vocals, Dan Vitello on drums and vocals, and Marty Lee on bass — have “a lot of energy … amazing groove and creative use of words.”
And Pinto Graham — Brian Harris on drums, Andre Roman on guitar and vocals, and Ant Reckart on bass and vocals — is “a sledgehammer of sludge and tone. You could cut through it with a knife. Every single molecule in your body is vibrating” during the band’s live set.
“It’s four very different sounding bands,” Leonard continued, but “it’s all on the rock spectrum. And it goes back to that challenge — how to make it interesting and creative. All of these bands are seasoned players and they’re in command of what they do, and they all have an innovative spark.”
And all are aware they’re now carrying on a musical tradition that, despite the Who’s wishes, is very much alive as it gets older. “I am relieved that rock is not as much of a focal point of the mainstream. It doesn’t need to be there,” Leonard said. It has had its time in the sun, from its classic heyday of the ‘60s and early ‘70s to its “ridiculous” phase in the ‘80s to another resurgence in the ‘90s. Now, Leonard said, “it’s going to develop however the hell it wants to. The more it stays off of the radar, the more it develops its agenda, and the more exciting it’s going to become…. There’s plenty of possibility still in it.”
And people still come out to hear it. “People want that powerful sound, that aggressive sound, something that’s uplifting,” Leonard said. “When you plug your guitar in, and turn your amp up, and play it loud, it’s going to feel good, and that’s never going away.”
Death Saddle Syndicate, The Hosemen, Half Dragon, and Pinto Graham play the Cellar on Treadwell, 295 Treadwell St. in Hamden, on Dec. 20. Visit the event’s Facebook page for more information.
