A Rooster for the Masses delivers music with a message

A Rooster for the Masses attacks social and political issues with a commanding force and delivers the message with fluent musical composition. There is a strong bond between all the members, which is conveyed through their energy on stage. The music can be described as Indie rock set to a dance beat with a voice for injustice.

The empowering messages are not what brought these six musicians together. A passion for music is the common tie between them.

"A bunch of us just got together and decided we were going to see what happened," guitarist Wes Gillespie explained.

Gillespie and bassist Alex Cox came together when the two played in Not So Dandylions followed by the group Radical Nine. Cox and Gillespie then began to write songs together.

"We dabbled with doing stuff here and there. We would do songs together and we would do songs totally by ourselves. Then he [Cox] would write a song totally by himself. Then some of that stuff eventually became Rooster songs. We didn't have any idea they'd be that way," Gillespie said.

The two joined with guitarist David Patterson and drummer Greg Joyner.

In search of a voice the group experimented and found two solutions, Adam Eckhardt and Bart Tomlin.

Things then began to fall in place and the music grew from experimental chords and bass lines into a well developed sound. Totaling six members in all, the group attributes its unique sound to multiple inputs.

"We're pulling from different backgrounds," Gillespie said. "Alex has played in everything from speed metal to Brit pop and so have I."

With years of music under its belt, it was only a matter of melding the concepts together. Taking influences of funk, rhythm and blues and rock, A Rooster for the Masses created an innovational, yet distinctive, sound.

"I think where it comes from is there is a lot of people in this band and they're very well versed in music, besides knowing how to play instruments, just have a large vocabulary for music in general," vocalist Adam Eckhardt said. "There is a willingness to bring things in and we work together to make it what it is."

The group has been told they sound like everything from The Cure to Mars Volta. One fan described its sound as more of a hybrid of eras.

"A girl in Charlotte said we sounded like a cross between Depeche Mode and CCR [Creedence Clearwater Revival], as weird as it sounds she's kinda right," vocalist Bart Tomlin said.

The creativity doesn't stop with the musical voices. The band uses things they disagree with or find wrong in today's society as fuel for writing lyrics. The lines are charged with passion and tackle some of today's hottest issues. Its songs question the social standing of migrant workers, criticize war and explore the field of psychiatry.

Its catchiest song, "Left Coast," portrays migrant workers as indentured servants. It depicts the social standing of such workers as a form of "modern slavery" where they are forced to "do the dirty work."

Intensity can also be felt in the song "Code Red." The lyrics shout to the listener to "stand up, don't believe it." The inspiration came from recent political events and the USA's color-coded terror alert system.

"Parts are about 9/11 and parts are about the re-election -- when all of the sudden Bush was doing bad in the polls, we went code red. It was so convenient, all of the sudden he went up in polls because it was like he was taking care of us with this color code," Eckhardt said.

The poignant song "National" petitions the listener to question the "American way" along with the things the common person takes for granted. The song portrays in a blunt manner the price soldiers pay.

"Straight out of high school, I needed something to do, Recruiter said 'Be all you can be'- I got sent over so proud, I got sent home in a box, thanks for all the flowers," but it doesn't stop there.

The song goes on to probe Donald Rumsfeld's position on war and presents the possible injustice.

"These things I'm singing out about I believe in," Eckhardt said. "I was extremely outraged when I heard Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the troops, and just say 'well, you go to war and this is the army you've got' -- tough s---. Meanwhile, [Rumsfeld] came in an armored vehicle."

The issues are not limited to politics. In its song "Wired Weird" vocalist Tomlin paints a relationship that questions normality among humans.

"I was messing around with the words, the idea is basically equating electronic equipment as a metaphor to how the human brain is put together," Tomlin said. "People are put together differently; weird is what some people consider normal. With humans being so varied, nothing is abnormal. The pharmaceutical landscape is interested in pushing everyone into a mold with everyone functioning the same way. I think that is sort of detrimental."

This bold approach to music is a reflection of the group's attitude towards life. The name, A Rooster for the Masses, stems from a character in many of David Sedaris' writings. Sedaris writes about his younger brother who has a rebellious attitude and doesn't hesitate to vocalize his disagreements.

This outlook mimics what the band tries to convey to its audience. "It's just the f--- attitude he has: 'nothing matters, f--- them.' People are so uptight about these things, so f--- them. And then when the political stuff came in, it worked even more. We made it [A Rooster for the Masses] sort of a wake-up call for people," Eckhardt explained.

Things haven't been easy for the group. They recently replaced founding member Greg Joyner with new drummer Rob Lackey. With such passion for music, turmoil between members is to be expected.

"If you put so much into being in a band and what it is, its identity, it becomes part of you," Eckhardt explained. "You become part of it, and if you're emotionally into the music and writing the words and everything else it becomes very taxing when you work on it and work on it and someone goes, 'Ehhh, I've got to spend more time with my dog,' or 'I hate you,' or whatever and then it goes down the drain."