I sat down with up-and-coming, Brooklyn-based group Snowmine after its first show in Florida on Tuesday night in Tallahassee.
Chatting with the group was as smooth as the sounds that blared through the speakers earlier that night and made me long to be driven down an open road in the West on a cool, sunny day.
The band’s sound is hard to classify under any one existing genre, but its Instagram bio describes it as ambient psych pop.
Grayson Sanders, lead vocalist and keyboardist, said the members’ musical backgrounds heavily influence their work. Sanders studied classical composition at New York University, where he met bassist Jay Goodman.
The two quickly re-enacted the experience of passing each other in the hall when Goodman, who studied jazz performance, was holding a bass guitar.
“I was like, ‘Hey, you play the bass?’”
“I do.”
“You wanna start a band?”
“I do.”
Since meeting about eight years ago, the two have started multiple bands. In the process, they met guitarist Calvin Pia, who studied music technology at NYU, guitarist Austin Mendenhall and drummer Alex Beckmann.
Snowmine has been together for almost two years, and they’ve been touring for about a year, Sanders said.
The members’ camaraderie and love of food have kept things running smoothly on the road.
They keep notes about the restaurants they visit, so if they’re ever in the same area, they know where to stop for food.
The Scrambled Diner in Dyer, Ind., is a Snowmine favorite. All five members of the band raved about the Monkey Cakes, a stack of pancakes topped with dark chocolate, bananas, peanut butter, bacon, whipped cream, syrup and butter.
“Get them for everyone: you, your mom, your cousin,” Pia said.
The band released its first album, “Laminate Pet Animal,” in 2011, and it received a lot of attention on the Internet.
Tuesday night’s crowd sang lyrics back to the band, and Sanders expressed his gratitude to everyone for being so energetic during the set.
“You feel like people are ready for you to play your first note,” Goodman said.
The audience cheered loudly with both hands in the air when Sanders announced Beckmann was going to take a picture for Instagram.
Until now, the band has done its own promoting, but the group agreed it’s ready to take the next step with its second album, "Dialects," which will drop in February.
“Rome,” Snowmine’s first single, was released Monday and will make its radio debut next week.
The band members agreed they would jump, giggle and “hug it out” the first time they hear their single through radio speakers.
“I’ll definitely order the nearest guacamole from the nearest person,” Pia said.
A version of this story ran on page 8 on 10/17/2013 under the headline "Down-to-earth musicians defy genres, devour pancakes"
Snowmine, an experimental indie group, performs at Club Downunder in Tallahassee on Tuesday. The show was the band’s first in Florida.
