Today we’d like to introduce you to 12th Avenue Shred Company.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We began as a bunch of friends who all played instruments, and a mutual friend of ours wanted us to play a show for his “Big Booty Birthday Bash.” We only had 2 weeks to get everything together, and we, quite frankly, played like “Booty.” Despite the poor first showing, we quickly clicked musically due to us all being very close, especially Billy (guitarist and vocalist) and Naoto (drummer), who were in a relationship during the first couple months of the band. Following the first show, we had the opportunity to play with several other local bands at small venues, and house shows around Ohio State’s Campus. Although we still have much to improve, we feel that we have a cool style of music, as we all have differing tastes; mashing genres together, aiming to create a sound unique to ours.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Although it has been a relatively smooth road, as we get along well and have lots of fun, it has been difficult for us to smoothly blend our differing tastes in music together. With our backgrounds ranging from blues to classical to funk and brooding indie rock, finding the right mix of playing to our strengths and having a cohesive sound was definitely a struggle and is something that we’re still working on.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
We are a local indie psychedelic garage ska-blues bloke core fusion jazz-rock band from Columbus, Ohio. As such, I feel that we take our pride in making as fun of a show as possible and making cool music. I feel that our speciality is not having a specialty. We don’t tie ourselves down to any image, sound, or vibe. We try our best to surprise people, even if they’ve seen us before.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
One of our favorite things about Columbus is the openness we’ve found in the local arts and music scene. Almost every band we’ve met has been super friendly and amazing in helping us get shows and expand our base of listeners, and it’s been awesome to be able to do little things like plug other awesome local bands for shows and return the favor to some of the other bands in the scene. It can sometimes feel like if one of us succeed all of us succeed; there can be a really cool sense of camaraderie. Our least favorite thing about Columbus is probably how little access to the outdoors there is here, some of us are pretty into climbing, and all of us love to get out into nature, so the lack of greenery can be a bummer.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/12thaveshredco?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM=
- SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/Hheba
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5hFbCyBErn3kiy2FcexykK?si=CYC2GbvtRF-FZ2VOwTDEFw
Image Credits
Ethan Perez
Izzy Furl
Dennis McAfee
