Up-and-coming band This Providence had a good year in 2009. They released their third full-length album, “Who Are You Now,” and their single, “Letdown,” got decent radio play and significant notice from MTV, as did “Keeping On Without You.”
They even got to play at Seattle radio station KISS 106.1 FM’s annual Jingle Bell Bash with, among other bands, the All-American Rejects. But they’re not slowing down; rather, 2010 may be just as big — if not bigger — for This Providence.
In an interview with The Eagle, bassist David Blaise discussed being on the road, the progression of the band and what’s next for This Providence.
After a month and a half of relaxation time — the longest amount of time the band spent at home in about a year — This Providence is hitting the road again, opening for Motion City Soundtrack. But being back on tour, Blaise said, is bittersweet.
“We’ve been out for nine months last year,” he said on the phone from Minneapolis. “We got kind of just a little piece of home. It’s definitely awesome to be back on the road, we miss it. But it’s different to get back into it when it’s this cold.”
Besides their dedication to the music, what sets This Providence apart from the rest of the pack is their refusal to give in to the current fads.
“We don’t really have too many gimmicks like some bands do,” Blaise said. “We like to focus on the songs a lot and less of the image. We don’t try to follow the trend as much as some other bands might. We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves in a certain genre — we kind of just make our own style a little bit.”
First formed in 2003, the band has progressed greatly from one album to the next.
“Basically, we’ve stripped it down a lot more,” Blaise said of the evolution of the This Providence sound. “When we first started, the band was a lot more pop-rock, pop-punk and a little more technical. It was more about trying to have impressive guitarlines and baselines and stuff, and we weren’t really focusing as much on just simple songwriting.” This Providence, he went on to explain, seek to be accessible.
“We want to be more of a band that you can just sing along to and not have to get messed up in the time signatures or anything anymore,” he said. “It’s just in the kind of stuff we love.”
“Who Are You Now,” which was first released in early 2009, is full of catchy rock music without a lot of the bells and whistles that fill most popular music these days. Beautifully simplistic without feeling empty, the songs are more reminiscent of bands that were big 10 or so years ago. Ranging from the more rock ‘n’ roll “Letdown” to the bare-bones “Sand In Your Shoes,” the band fill a void present in their genre. Without pretending to be something it’s not, This Providence are able to simply create good music, something that other bands struggle to do.
“Waste Myself,” described by Blaise as “feel-good rock,” is what listeners can expect to hear more of on their next album. Although they are currently in the process of writing new music, fans shouldn’t expect to hear it any time soon.
“[The album] is going well right now, but it kind of takes a standstill when we’re back on the road,” Blaise said. “We’re going to be trying to write a lot more, though, than we normally do when we’re on tour. But we probably won’t be hitting the studio until the summer.”
Of course, every band has its pastimes, and one of This Providence’s is a fascination with social networking.
“All of us are obsessed with Twitter and blogging,” Blaise said. “We try to pretty much do any kind of social networking thing to get involved with the fans and talk to them. There’s Buzznet, Tumblr, Blogspot, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter — we pretty much do all of those just to get any kind of fan who enjoys our music and hit them up in any certain way. And plus we love it, so it’s win-win I guess.”
But with the music industry suffering in the financial crisis, bands like This Providence must make a point of asking fans to support them monetarily as well as in spirit.
“Come to a show and ... keep buying music!” Blaise said. “’Cause it’s a little easier to just steal music and make your impression without going to a show or following a band at all.”
Keep an eye out for This Providence in 2010, and make sure to catch them opening for Motion City Soundtrack at the Recher Theater in Towson, Md., on Feb. 1.
You can reach this writer at mhollander@theeagleonline.com.
