The hard stuff

Rocking with Cheerleadr and Ross Phasor

Cellars by Starlight by Jonathan Perry

To avoid any confusion, Cheerleadr want you to know exactly what kind of album they've made right off the bat. So, printed plainly on the cover of the Boston band's third disc, are two simple words: Rock Album. Words that, if you ask the four guys in Cheerleadr (or the guys in Ross Phasor, for that matter, but we'll get to them in a minute), aren't heard or embraced often enough in these days of splintered genres and specialized markets.

"There are so many forms of horrible rock out there -- kid rock, rap rock, jazz rock," says singer/rhythm-guitarist Will Claflin over beers with his bandmates -- lead-guitarist Chad Appleby, bassist John Fortin, and drummer Phil Matthews -- at the Middle East bakery. "This is just a straight-up, what-you-see-is-what-you-get record. It's a rock album. If you like rock, you'll like it. People always try and reinvent the wheel, but I think that by just going back and being true to your roots, it [the music] happens naturally."

Far from being a generic, catch-all phrase, Rock Album, say band members, is meant to speak simply and directly to an audience that's starved to hear such things. (Cheerleadr will celebrate the disc's release with a November 20 show at the Middle East upstairs.) "No one," says Appleby, "is gonna sue us for false advertising." Indeed, even though early publicity billed Cheerleadr (whose line-up has seen several shifts since the band's inception, in 1995) as a "hard pop" outfit, the characterization seemed akin to forcing a square peg into a round hole. Cheerleadr are a rock band in the '90s sense of the phrase -- which means that a strain of that punk-metal hybrid called grunge has been programmed like DNA into their collective soul.

As darkly turbulent as the band's music is, both Rock Album and its predecessor, 1997's Batten Down the Hatches (both of which were produced by Matthew Ellard at Fort Apache and issued on the band's own Pep Rally imprint), are commercial, wholly accessible works that wouldn't sound out of place on modern-rock-radio playlists alongside Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters, and the band who started this stuff in the first place, Nirvana. All four band members cringe. "The `N' word scares the crap out of us," admits Claflin, who writes the band's lyrics. "Please don't mention Nirvana," Appleby adds. "I wish they'd never happened. They ruined guitar solos for a whole generation."

In fact, Cheerleadr don't sound like Nirvana but rather evoke the streamlined, radio-savvy outfits that Kurt Cobain's combo unwittingly spawned. As capable as Cobain was of writing a pretty pop number, it's unlikely he would have penned anything as mercilessly catchy as "All About It," the STP-ish track that opens Rock Album, or the unplugged, openly self-effacing "Death of Me," a reflective acoustic ballad that's a tailor-made arena encore if ever there was one. Cheerleadr's attention to dramatic hooks and concise songwriting (the 11 tracks on Rock Album clock in at just under 30 minutes) is just one aspect of their effective approach. More than anything else, the group know the value of presentation, and they deliver rock theater with the brazen flair and cocky confidence of guys who firmly believe in following their own instincts -- and then sharpening the results from the inside and projecting them outward. Appleby, who's one of the flashiest rock guitarists in town, has a knack for projecting an offhand recklessness that borders on abandon -- even though this is an outfit that's constantly honing and refining its show.

"I think we're reaching new levels all of the time," he points out. "I leave every show more confident that the audience doesn't know when I've fucked up." The group's semifinal finish in this past year's Rumble seems only to have strengthened Cheerleadr's resolve to become, well, the best band in the land. Claflin, who calls the group "detail fanatics," believes Rock Album (which marks the first time the current line-up has recorded an album together) is an accurate reflection of an outfit that's still a work-in-progress: "I think that the record comes across as strongly as we do live. I think that you could put us head-to-head with a lot of bands in the country, a lot of the top touring bands . . . I mean, we're entertaining."

"It's a pretty honest record, and the songwriting's right up front, and that's what the playing's built around," explains Matthews. "What will be really important to find out is if the listener identifies with it. But we're not putting out Dark Side of the Moon or anything -- it's pretty accessible music." Or as Fortin prefers to describe it: "Two guitars. Bass. Drums. Vocals. Rock and roll."

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The first thing Ross Phasor singer John LaCroix does when he and his band (sans bassist Jay Matrona) sit down to chat is point out his footwear. "I got rocket socks," he says, pulling up a pant leg to show that colorfully stitched rocket ships are orbiting his ankles. "I found 'em at a little-kids store. Everybody should have a pair. But you gotta have small feet -- you gotta be a midget."

LaCroix may be a diminutive frontman, but there's nothing small in scale about either Ross Phasor's audacious self-released debut, Gold Is Dead, Hide Your Rock & Roll (Onion), or the foursome's unabashedly widescreen rock dreams. The album itself sounds like a celebration: a time-tripping reclamation of rock as defined by its '70s heyday of hedonistic fantasy, cheap thrills, and, above all, glittering spectacle. (Ross Phasor play the Linwood next Thursday, November 11.)

"There should not be anything bashful about rock and roll," says LaCroix. "We want to perpetuate folklore. Everybody wants to transcend time a little bit, and the only way to do it is, you can either have kids or you join a rock band." Adds guitarist Charles Hansen, "When I see [film of] Zeppelin, it's like Olympus. There's this mystery about it, and I really love that whole thing -- I wish there was more of it now. When I watch a band on MTV, I see something that's very flat. It is what it is. There's nothing behind it, whereas if you see the Who in a film clip from 1969, you say, `Wow!' There is a mystery about it that is something more than when you're seeing a typical Korn video. I mean, who gives a shit?"

Certainly not Ross Phasor, who draw their inspiration from an earlier rock age populated by the likes of T. Rex, Ziggy-era Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Led Zeppelin, and even a little Rush. Plus, LaCroix adds, "my dad worked at NASA and I listened to a lot of Kiss records as a kid." On Gold, Ross Phasor strut with a self-made glamor through the velvet goldmine of '70s sci-fi glam ("Space Boots"), English prog/psych dementia ("Nurse Priestly"), and electric warrior arena rock ("Radio Friendly Sellout"). Most important, they avoid emitting the stale bongwater whiff of rehashed nostalgia.

Half of Gold's tracks were recorded by the band themselves in their rehearsal space (the remaining tracks were recorded at Fort Apache). "We knew the songs were there," says drummer Jonathan Screnci. "But from a production standpoint, half of the record was us shooting in the dark." And Hansen admits that when they first began writing together, three years ago, "the first few things we came up with were fucking horrible." Even after the band gelled, the reception the group got from local audiences ranged from indifferent to chilly. For one thing, there were those guitar solos: instrumental runs that unselfconsciously took their cues from Mick Ronson and Jimmy Page. They were protean and daring, and perceived as completely unhip relics of rock's dinosaur age. During a show at the Middle East upstairs last year, Hansen's extended outro on the Zep-heavy "Jet Car" (the band's first self-released single) left the audience bewildered. "We caught a lot of flak after that show," LaCroix acknowledges.

"One of the things I get a real charge out of is improvising and not knowing where the fuck it's going," Hansen says with a shrug. "Sometimes it sucks. But I love bands like Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and early Pink Floyd, where they're playing by the seat of their pants."

Then there's the matter of LaCroix's preternaturally high, preening voice, which even now can cause unsuspecting heads to do a double take. "People were weirded out by him," Hansen says. "I could imagine it being very jarring at first, but if you actually listen to his voice, it's very melodic and makes perfect sense."

Ross Phasor always made perfect sense to Jonathan Screnci. He knew the band weren't "a bunch of guys getting together to make some lo-fi recordings in their basement. It was evident early on that this was -- and I don't mean this in a derogatory sense -- arena rock. It's big music." LaCroix smiles. "That's why no one liked us for a long time -- because we were that," he says, rocket socks still showing. "Now they're ready for us."

SWERVEDRIVER FRONTMAN

Adam Franklin has signed a solo-album deal with Fort Point Entertainment Group, Inc., a newly created Boston-based company that in effect is a consolidation of the local Catapult Records and Spinning Records labels. Fort Point vice-president Garret Vandermolen says Franklin's solo debut, due out next year, will be the nascent company's first worldwide release. Vandermolen explains that company president Chris Davies, who had handled Swervedriver's promotion and publicity for the British band's Zero Hour label, knew Franklin was interested in making a solo album, and he believes that "the album will really appeal to Swervedriver fans. It's on the psychedelic side of things." Catapult and Spinning artists who have been folded into Fort Point include Star Ghost Dog (who have a new EP due out November 15), the Banjo Spiders, Fuzzy, and Cherry 2000.