Like fellow Cincinnati buzz bands, the sitar-driven Dawg Yawp and Lung, featuring cello and drums, Us, Today has created its own distinctive sound by eschewing the typical guitar, bass and drums setup.
Kristin Agee (vibraphone), Joel Griggs (guitar) and Jeff Mellott (drums) of Us, Today, performing at the Trolley Stop in Dayton on Saturday, Oct. 26, recently discussed musical evolution and the instrumental post-rock group’s latest album, “Computant.”
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Agee: "When we first started playing music together, none of us had been in an original, touring band before. We all played in cover bands and messed around with original bands but nothing to where we had bands that gigged a lot, especially out of town. I feel like through the eight years of being in this band, we've all kind of figured it out."
Mellott: "It's a lot of feeling around in the dark."
Griggs: "This has definitely been an evolution for me. It has influenced my writing style because I can't approach it like a normal guitar player because a lot of the low end won't be covered. A lot of times while writing, Kris and I think of playing off of each other. Someone has the carry the melody. I try to carry some sense of a melody and a bass line at the same time in my playing so there's always something to latch onto."
Agee: "At the beginning of the group we'd have these weekly improv sessions where we we'd play for a couple of hours and see what happened. We'd record them and sometimes it went well and sometimes it was garbage. That's how our first album came about. Our writing process is much different now. We come in with ideas and we plan things out a lot more."
Mellott: "We tracked everything together in the studio. There are only a couple of things on the new album where we added over it or changed something after the fact. We typically like to go into the studio prepared and perform how we're going to play. We've been debating changing that up in the future but that's what we did on this record."
Agee: "We have a couple of more local shows here in Cincinnati and after that we're going to take a little time off from shows and start working on our next album."
Griggs: "We had a couple of years in between our last album and the newest one. Before you know it, you look down and it's been two years so we'll try not to let that happen again."
WANT TO GO?
Who: Us, Today
Where: Trolley Stop, 530 E. Fifth St., Dayton
When: 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26
More info: (937) 461-1101 or www.trolleystopdayton.com
Artist info: https://ustodaymusic.bandcamp.com
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