Many bands try to push the limits of music, but local group Halfway Too Raisins is aiming to distinguish itself from the crowd.
“We don’t like to pigeonhole ourselves into a particular genre,” said Stew Klein, accordion player for the group. “Our sound is a combination of ’50s rockabilly, gypsy folk, acid rap, psychedelic rock, gangster hillbilly, symphonic hip-hop, Germanic opera, Swedish tap-dance, lo-fi jamtronica and cosmic-string-electronica-house dance EDM.”
Halfway Too Raisins will bring its unique sound to Jackie O’s Pub & Brewery alongside openers The Gerbil Stompers, The White Crayon and A Grocery Story.
Growing up in Athens, the members of Halfway Too Raisins have all worked on previous projects, including Klein’s electric triangle part in a little-known Skeletonwitch recording.
Now that the members — Yngvarr Johannes, guitar, Danilo Maximiano, bass, David Halsten, drums and Laurie Leonas, backing vocals — have all matured in the Athens music scene, they said the group is ready to take on this new project.
“The music is so ambitious this time around and our live performance is so locked in that everything is starting to click and feel right,” Johannes said.
Johannes said the group’s name — Halfway Too Raisins — is a symbol of the group’s growing animosity for college and the struggles associated with figuring out “who you are” in the midst of a quarter-life crisis.
Halsten added the band is highly influenced by an underground Thai electro death metal group that most people “probably wouldn’t know or understand,” but said his biggest influence is still The Beatles.
Viewers of the band’s recent debut performance at The Smiling Skull Saloon saw less depth in the band.
“They played a few Black Keys covers and even went acoustic for a while,” said Jackie Johnson, a senior studying anthropology and economics. “It was a pretty standard weekend show.”
