Southeast Engine will kick off a two-weekend tour tonight with its show at Casa Nueva, 4 W. State St. Playing in Athens again is like coming home for the band members.
"It's great to start in Athens because that's where the band got started," said Adam Remnant, lead vocalist and guitarist. "Athens is really home to Southeast Engine in a lot of ways."
With strong roots in the Athens music scene, the band - Adam, his brother and bassist Jesse, drummer Leo DeLuca and multi-instrumentalist Billy Matheny - sees its music as a way to display its Ohio mentality. The band's strong Ohio identity is something that Adam said a lot of fans relate to.
"Our music has a strong sense of location rooted in Ohio," Adam said. "When we're out on tour people pick up on that Ohio vibe, and a lot of people from Ohio that live in other cities now come to see us for nostalgia purposes."
The band's history in Athens and the interaction it has with the crowds here make it the ideal place to experience its music for the first time, Matheny said.
"There's probably no better place to see Southeast Engine for the first time than in Athens," he said. "We're going to be doing a lot of material from the band's career. There are five or six albums to go back to, but we'll be doing a lot of new material as well and we high-five anyone who asks."
Southeast Engine's newest album, Canary, will be released March 29 and several of the album's songs will be included in the band's set tonight at Casa.
"The songs that seem to translate best in a live setting, we're doing, and then keeping a lot of the older songs that have translated live as well," Adam said.
The band hopes that performing songs from the new album will increase audience interest in the record, Jesse said.
"We're about a month and a half out from putting out the record, so this is kind of the time where you play shows and get people excited about it," he said. "So people are willing to get into it when it comes out."
Southeast Engine's current lineup has been performing together for three years, which has allowed the band members to develop a good musical relationship.
"We mesh very well as players and everything just feels in its right place," Jesse said. "We have a good energy together."
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