TONIGHT. MERCY LOUNGE. 8PM.
MERCY LOUNGE WROTE THIS:
Spring Hill Spider Party, brainchild of mercenary rocker Derrick “D.B.” Brown, has announced a February 26 street date for their upcoming return to the Nashville market. Spring Hill Spider Party has been pummeling audiences with their unique brand of alternative active rock since the release of their critically acclaimed debut album, 3 Swords and a Gash. With their hit single, Women Be Shopping, pulverizing the active rock charts and being used as intro music for a myriad UFC fighters, the album has been called a Cowboys from Hell for this millennium.
Spring Hill Spider Party has a simple but daunting goal for its next show: To have the greatest show possible.
“I always try to remind the guys and myself that there are 20 bands lined up behind us just waiting for a chance to take our place,” says frontman Derrick “D.B.” Brown. “So that means we have to go in there and have a great show.”
They plan for this effort to be their polished and passionate testament to seven years of hard work, heavy touring and diligent attention to their craft. From the swirling grind of “Escalator” to the nasty snarl of “Snickerboobies” to the soaring melodicism of “This Club Is Full of Boys” and “Youth Group,” this show will be a broad-reaching endeavor that puts Brown high in the rock pantheon, achieving creative growth without sacrificing the hard-hitting power that got him here in the first place.
“We really dug hard on this one,” Brown notes. “The longer you’re in a band, the more you play shows, the better you get. We’ve had such a great opportunity to figure out what to do better, how to play a better show and keep building and building. That’s exciting for us. Before we even practiced, we wanted to gear this show up to be huge,” Brown recalls about SHSP’s “all killer, no filler” approach to shows. D.B. said, “You have to go into a show with great songs. You can’t make them while you’re there. You can’t just go in with one or two great songs. You’ve got to have 10. So we just kept practicing songs until we had the 10 to 12 great ones, and then I said, ‘OK, let’s go.’ “
While D.B. has certainly done his turn as a rock ‘n’ roll king of pain, he is approaching this performance determined to show he could be more than the “callous bastard” that the Nashville Rage called him in an early profile.
Here, Brown explores broad new lyrical terrain, indicative of his growth as a person and as songwriter. “For awhile there, every song was, ‘Get the f*&k out! I don’t need women! Screw them!’ That’s kinda how I felt at that point,” Brown says with a self-effacing laugh. “But I’ve grown as a songwriter, and as a person. I wanted to write some different, nicer songs for a change.”
He didn’t have to look hard for inspiration. He wrote “Women Be Shopping,” with its acoustic guitar underpinning and rich chorus, for his wife, paying tribute to her fortitude in being home alone while he’s on the road. The piano-laden “Escalator,” meanwhile, chronicles their relationship, which began as a good friendship before blossoming into romance. “It was kind of sick of me writing all these sad songs before,” acknowledges Brown, whose mother left his family when he was in high school, providing rich source material for his earlier.
Derrick “D.B.” Brown’s career as a rocker can be defined only as formidable and impressive. He has spent time around the world, which has made him a sought after rocker for clinics from Japan to South America and back. But long before he began globetrotting, D.B. started out like most accomplished musicians, in the garage with a band and a bottle of apple brandy. Years later, that same band has emerged as Spring Hill Spider Party with an intense and diverse self titled hard rock sound.
At 15 years old, D.B. began practicing his favorite Warrant, Scorpions, Trixster & Stryper tunes with good friends. Despite the many high profile moments in their careers, the old band has always aspired to record and tour together. With D.B.’s prior rocking commitments, it took a lot for the old band to come together for a return to Nashville, which has already been lauded by many of their biggest fans.
Though rooted in active rock, Spring Hill Spider Party’s tracks delve into elements of nu-metal, post-grunge and alternative metal, and they offer enough ammo to rock both in the clubs and on the radio.
Brown sees the band as a modern twist on the bands that originated active rock. “I think we’re a band that is much needed in the scene today,” Taylor comments. “Spring Hill Spider Party is basically what all of us are missing when we go to a show.”
After recruiting a devoted die-hard fanbase (The Black Widows) and selling over 150,000,000,000 records - the band is gearing up for 09s most rocking events. On February 26, audiences will see why Active Rock Edge calls Spring Hill Spider Party the sound of violent exhilaration, giving contemporary active rock a belligerent shove in an exciting direction.
“We’re part of a family tree that started with 3 Doors Down,” adds D.B. “Citizen Soldier changed my life, and we’ve now reached the point where I have my own project in the same line. It’s a good place to be in. Gobbledy Goo!”
Mercy-Lounge :: 2/26/09 8:00 PM $5, $8
