TopherMan

Add one part artist, one part desire, one part faith and a ton of talent and you get TopherMan. This up and coming band from Florence, Mississippi is breaking all the rules and making new ones with the true-to-life lyrics and haunting musical offerings. The catch? They are both under 16 years of age. Cameron and Chandler Wood have talent beyond their young years. "We've been playing and writing for several years," said Cameron live on air with Russ and Traci Friday morning. "Chandler got a guitar for Christmas one year and I had drums, and it just started from there."

Don't just take our word for it, log on the www.tophermanband.com or check out their myspace page at www. myspace.com/tophermanband.

And thanks to their mom, Pam, you can find their CDs in Borders, Family Christian Stores, and of course on iTunes and other musical download services.

Written by Traci Lee
February 2, 2007 - STAR 93.5 FM Radio Station, Clinton, Mississippi

You can take a few moments to look up the word ‘individuality,’ or you can look to Chandler and Cameron Wood.
Determined to walk to the beat of their own drum, the teen brothers from Florence reveal their thoughts – and considerable artistic abilities – on their 10-song CD Different.
The title is quite well chosen.
How many songwriters begin honing their craft in the 4th grade, for instance?
And how often do you run across middle-schoolers who are finely skilled on guitar, violin, and mandolin?
Talent aside, the message the boys want to spread through their band – Topherman – runs closer to the “spiritual” than “musical.”
Lying beneath their obvious wealth of talent is an assured degree of maturity, and that more than anything, is what sets the Wood brothers apart.
Fifteen-year-old Cameron, the elder member of Topherman, says the musical union began forming seven years ago.
“Chandler was about six years old,” Cameron says.
“He got a guitar for Christmas that year, and I got a drum set. We started playing, and started writing music, and it just took off.”
The results of six years of listening and learning are evident on the first spin of the boys’ disc Different.
“Dancing With Me,” the CD’s sixth track, recalls a lost loved one, and its reassuring message hovers over a melody that would fit snugly on a Jackson Browne album.
The title track, propelled by 13-year-old Chandler’s staccato guitar riff, urges introspection and thrusts a dagger at the pointlessness of imitation.
“Way Out” reaches for a hand up in a world where “all my role models keep letting me down,” and the right road to take is not always evident.
“My actions speak louder than words,” Cameron sings. “I keep in trying, but this fight keeps colliding with the life that I’m living now.”
When on “Way Out” Cameron asks for help in passing his “final test,” you clearly get the message that he’s not talking mid-terms.
All said, it’s pretty heady stuff for a guy who’s barley old enough to hold a driver’s permit.
“I think a lot of kids are just lost,” Cameron says during an interview at Florence High School, where he’s a sophomore. Chandler is an 8th grader at Florence Middle School.
“They don’t understand where they’re going, what path they’re going to take, or what they need to do, I think a lot of them are worried more about the party this weekend than what they need to get ready for, the future.”
“We want to get our message out to everybody,” Chandler says.
Cameron finishes the thought.
“Make sure you know what you’re doing, before it’s too late. Make sure you make the choice.”
Chandler says the band is definitely a “contemporary Christian” undertaking, but Topherman has arrived at this point through a process of musical progression.
“We started out with more of a folk or country style,” older brother Cameron explains.
“We moved up this because we got a little older and matured a little, and we knew we had a message we wanted to share.”
Chandler sums up the vision that propels Topherman, and led to the creation of Different.
“Not a lot of kids do this,” he says. “Kids are really more into pop. We felt like people would maybe listen more closely to us (doing this type of music) because we’re kids.”
The Wood brothers’ artistic leanings aren’t limited to strings, vocals, drums or keyboards.
Cameron dabbles in video production when he’s away from his music, and Chandler, a blossoming artist, designed the cover illustration for Different, available at Family Christian Stores, internet sites like cdbaby.com and I-tunes, and at Border’s Books and Music at Flowood’s Dogwood mall.
The disc was recorded at Peace Street Studio in Canton, and co-produced by Cameron and Chandler, along with Paul Wolf , who lent a hand on percussion. Ten tunes were whittled out the estimated 45 songs the boys have co-written.
Mom (Pam), and dad Chris are naturally noted in the liner notes of Different, as both played roles in the evolution of Topherman.
“I always tried to expose them to different genres of music, and tried to encourage them along the way,” Pam says.
“My father is self-taught on the piano, and his side of the family is more musical,” Cameron says.
“My mother has a lot of creativity, so the artistic aspect we probably got from her, and the music came from our dad.”
More information about the band, including dates and sites for upcoming shows, can be found at www.tophermanband.com, or at myspace.com/tophermanband. (Written by Journalist, Charles Bailey, February 14, 2007) - Rankin County News