Columbus and Athens-based band Earwig will bring its personalized style of indie music to The Union tomorrow along with Athens band Mind Fish and Columbus’ You’re So Bossy.
“We play indie rock, underground music,” said guitarist Lizard McGee. “We’re very much a DIY affair in that we produce our own records, release our own music on our own label and do follow all those types of rules.”
The three-piece group, featuring guitar, bass and drums, released its newest CD about six months ago and is still working to promote the album to its fans.
“The album is very new to a lot of people, and I know a lot of people haven’t heard it yet,” McGee said. “This album sounds the best and it’s the best-written songs … there are a lot of songs that are becoming live favorites for people.”
A Columbus producer, who has worked with Maroon 5 and OAR, did production for the album, called Gibson Under Bridge, which McGee called the band’s most realized record yet.
“The title of that record comes from a dream, and all of the songs that are on that album came in some form or another from a dream,” McGee said. “I’m the principal songwriter for the band, and I recently had been getting a lot of songs coming to me weirdly in these strange dreams, so I collected them all.”
Although Earwig did use a producer for its latest album, the band members refused to relinquish their artistic freedoms.
“It is actually a little bit more difficult, but I think it’s important for us to have control over what we’re doing, and so it’s a situation that allows us to really maintain a focus,” McGee said.
In addition to being able to promote its newest record, Earwig is excited for tomorrow’s show because it gets to perform with Mind Fish.
“I run sound and do a lot of recording, engineering stuff around here and so does their drummer Steve Warstler. So I just kind of met them through mutual acquaintances and working with them, and then we became fans of each others’ bands, so we just started doing stuff together,” McGee said. “We don’t get to do it all the time, playing with Mind Fish, so it’s a big deal and it’s a lot of fun for us to do that.”
Dean Tartaglia, the lead singer and guitarist of Mind Fish, said he sees McGee as somewhat of a mentor and is always excited to play shows with Earwig.
“I love playing with them; they’re like one of the first bands that I ever really got into down here,” Tartaglia said. “We’re very similar people and that’s reflected in our music.”
