Wheels Above

They say those who cannot do, teach. In my case, those who cannot do, write. My musical abilities are proficient enough, I suppose, but never quite enough to lead my own band. Sometimes I'll watch a band, and become extremely envious of their abilities. Especially if they are quite a bit younger than I am. There has never been a clearer case of this than with Wheels Above.

That being said, I hate these kids. Not their band, but the kids themselves. The band is amazing, and that's what makes me hate them on a personal level. It's envy really. These dudes are about a decade my junior, and they are, without a doubt far more talented than I could ever be with a lifetime of practice. Bastards.

With a band whose members are as young as these guys are, you'd expect to hear trite, rehashed tributes to whatever the kids are listening to these days. But that's not what you get at a Wheels Above show. It’s a nice change to see a band as young as theirs drawing inspiration from all over the map, pulling together some very unique references from quite obscure places.

Blending jazzy, avant-garde rock and shoe gazer influences together into a completely listenable mesh of indie rock, these kids take the stage and exemplify a band that not only sounds great, but actually puts on a show as well. Writhing and squirming on stage, guitarist Pete Tremblay reminds me of a young Jonny Greenwood, with similar abilities.

Pulling triple duty on guitar, vocals and the occasional keyboard is Isaac Pindale, the band's leader. Rounding out the line-up is Alex Perez on bass who we're told got his chops by playing in a church band for the better part of his life and on drums is Chris Denny, who played with various metal bands and ran the Vans Warped Tour before joining Wheels Above

Drawing their influences from all over the musical map, Wheels Above pulls together a unique, almost unclassifiable form of indie rock. From chill out to rock out, psyche out to freak out, these guys deliver the goods.

Since their formation in the latter part of 2008, the Wheels Above has played innumerable shows around town as well as a spot at the Florida Music Festival. Not bad for a group that's only been in existence for about a year.

With a little luck, the boys will touring the east coast and recording a album soon. Until then, they'll be playing shows around town. You can catch them at Will's Pub, Peacock Room, Back Booth etc. Also, check them out at www.myspace.com/wheelsabove. Talented Bastards. - Crosby Stapleton, Orlando24.net

This is the 36th post in our Musician of the Day series.

Wheels Above is an emerging band in downtown Orlando with a truly unique sound. After seeing them perform they invited me for drinks and after an adventure of wandering through downtown Orlando on a Friday night, I finally got to sit down and get to know these four amazing musicians. They even took the opportunity to interview themselves, which has never happened before and was very interesting.

Exclusive Interview with Wheels Above

Stephanie Schoppert: Why don’t you guys start off by introducing yourselves?

Isaac Pinedale: My name is Isaac Pinedale. I’m 21 and I’ll tell you more about me later because a lot of me is tied in with music. (lead singer, guitar)

Pete Tremblay: My name is Pete Tremblay. I’m 28 years old, almost. I play guitar. I’m a libra… and there’s a gigantic horse right there. Bye Bye gigantic horse. (He’s not crazy, Orlando’s mounted police were walking by)

Alex Perez: This is Alex from Wheels Above. I have spent the last 15 years trying to practice my announcer voice so I can work for Disney and every radio station in the country. I can be hired for a dollar a word, very cheap. And uh… (bass)

Pete: You’re a balloon twister.

Alex: I am a balloon twister; I twist balloons, professional balloon twister. And here is Chris Denny! Chris Denny how do you feel?

Chris Denny: I think I am the one that is supposed to be saying my name over there. My name is Chris Denny I am 26 years old from West Palm Beach, Florida. I am the drummer and I have been playing drums for 15 years now. I am old, wow, that’s a long time. I’ve been with the band for about four months now.

Steph: Okay the next question…What is the story of the band?

Isaac: I guess I’ll start. I started this project like in March of 2008. What happened was I wrote a few songs, put them up online, Pete, our guitarist, expressed interest in playing for me, and so we started collaborating. Soon after me and Pete got together.

Pete: Yes, we got together.

Isaac: in a musical way.

Pete: When was that? That was August of 2008 right? The ground rules were made in May of 2008, we started talking at the Radiohead show in Tampa.

Isaac: And then Alex came along with our then drummer, Kyle Peeples. That was in August 2008, and then we played a couple of shows.

Pete: The first show as December 22, 2008 at The Haven.

Isaac: And then he left, Kyle Peeples, and Chris Denny joined in April, right before we played the Florida Music Festival in May. So he learned all the songs in two weeks, and then you know the rest is history.

Pete: Basically it’s taken awhile for us to really find the sound that we’ve been trying to get. Through a cultivation of a lot of different drummers, different arrangements, different instruments, literally trying to find the tone for this band has been a journey.

Pete: What about you Alex? Fondest memory with the band.

Alex: I joined this band, I saw it on Craigslist?

Pete: Why did you join this band? What was your main motivation?

Alex: Ok, Ok, I was on craigslist and there were like 5 bands. I went to their MySpace pages and I listened their music. There were two bands that I liked, one was in Ocoee or something and the other was Wheels Above and Love which was the original name for Wheels Above. Isaac will extrapolate on the story but it came from a dream. So I said I have to join the band, I emailed Isaac and the rest is history.

Pete: What did you play before you played bass?

Alex: Oh, before I played bass I played guitar for a church band. It was definitely an awesome experience. My dad’s a pastor so it was actually the same church that he played in. But yeah, Chris Denny is even the future, future story.

Chris: future, future story?

Pete: Chris Denny, please tell us succinctly why you joined the band, what you were thinking of doing and what you did before you were in this band.

Chris: The story of my beginning in this band…you know we’re doing this interview for them. Just take the night off and then listen to what we have to say and just write it down. So the beginning of my story, Alex our base player, came out to a show of mine with my old band Oh Romeo, which actually still is a band around now. And he thought that I had you know decent skills on the drums I guess, and he suggested me to Isaac. It actually didn’t happen till about four months later, when they needed a drummer because the old drummer just quit. The main reason I wanted to try out for them was I was looking for something a little different, I’d been playing like heavier music for a long time, and I kinda wanted to take a break from that and try something new. The rest I guess is recent history, since I’ve only been with the band for four months. So it’s not too much history but yeah I love it and I love the style that we’re going for.

Steph: Well something I always like to ask is- Any embarrassing moments with the band?

Isaac: Well most embarrassing moment for me was, I could have had a few moments in our earlier shows where I talked a great deal more than I was supposed to. I just kept rambling and I had to be shushed by the rest of my band.

Pete: First show. First show ever at the Haven. Isaac’s arguing with the sound guy before we even go on. I had to go up to him and be like “Listen, shut the f**k up.”

Isaac: No, I wasn’t arguing with him, I was just doing mic check, and you were like “Shut up.”

Pete: We were all new to whole thing working together.

Isaac: We were all pretty much on edge too.

Pete: It was a good show though, the Haven is a great show. But the funniest thing about that whole show was, there was this lady, she had about 30 beers no joke. She jumps on the stage and sings the National Anthem like Melissa Ethridge, straight up. And then later while we playing she’s like “You guys are f**king like Coldplay! Yes! Coldplaaay!” Yeah, it was awesome. Alex has got a story.

Alex: This is my story. In a land far away…no wait, wait. F**king Coldplay! My most embarrassing moment, I have friends and they say “do the pose.” Now the pose is a front stance in Karate. And so once when I did the pose, I knocked the chord out of my guitar, so for a good five seconds I was posing without any sound, and it was very embarrassing.

Chris: So one time, I was on tour with Oh Romeo and WoodAle. And the whole band, every single one of them had airsoft guns. And they were shooting at us like on the highway. Like they would get ahead of us so the wind would try and carry it back. And we were touring on a school bus that ran on biodiesel. So everybody got shot but me, and it was on the last day, they told me to go and get something from the bus. And it was on the floor and as I bent over to pick it up, I had like the worst stinging pain in my ass. Cause somebody was hiding in the seat and just jumped out and shot me point blank in the butt. It’s not really embarrassing but funny I guess you could say.

...Read the rest at http://fansiter.com/2009/09/17/exclusive-interview-with-wheels-above/. - Stephanie Schoppert, Fansiter.com