“Terra Firma” is set to release on Sept. 13 at the Hidden Gem Music Club. Special guests Sharon Lane and Danny Sauers, a pianist-saxophonist duo, will kick off the evening.
The rock quartet’s been together for over ten years, with guitarist Chris Coalt, bassist Chuckie Love and drummer Rob Brockman being there since the beginning. Danny Sauers, the original sax man, left the project a few years back, and Stephen Buttree was added to the mix as saxophonist and keyboardist.
All four band members serve as vocalists, and together they pull from a broad range of tastes to give audiences a spontaneous yet polished show. Or, as it’s been described, “improvisation with intent.”
SubT started as a house band at J-Alans, the now-defunct downtown Dayton bar where Cosmo Joe’s Atomic Lounge is currently. The weekly show gave SubT a perpetual gig, and the opportunity to open for bands rolling through town.
If there were a blanket term to best describe SubT, “jam band” would probably do it best. Of course, that term comes with a slew of cliches that might not accurately depict what SubT does. Coalt also says that while the jam band scene has been a big influence, especially in its ability to blend genres, there are also misconceptions about it, too.
“Somebody who hasn’t experienced the jam band scene or doesn’t know the intricacies of it would think that it’s just guys getting in a room who pick one chord and noodle around,” Coalt said. “But if you go listen to [rock band] Phish, it’s very composed, almost classical. Very high brow stuff.”
While there may be psychedelic noodling or tie-dyed folks in a SubT crowd, to pigeonhole that band would be like pigeonholing Phish or Frank Zappa: another palpable influence on the band.
Zappa — a brilliant composer who might detest he’s mentioned in the same sentence as Phish — explored rock, pop, jazz, spoken word and orchestral music throughout his life. It would be a disservice to reduce his massive catalog down to a single word. Subterranean, while admittedly no Zappa or Phish, is just as exploratory.
Take SubT’s 2017 album, “Loom.” In just nine songs, the band explores a little bit of everything, from funk to rockabilly to heavy guitar rock. It’s difficult to box those sounds in with a neat descriptor, and SubT has managed to remain ambiguously itself for two albums now.
“As an artist, you end up with the freedom to do whatever you want to do because that’s what the audience you’ve cultivated expects,” Coalt said. “The downfall is that it’s hard to cultivate an audience like that; it’s a little more eclectic, it’s not as accessible. But when you stick it out, you actually can build a fan base and do exactly what you want to do, which is the ultimate freedom that we all kind of wanted in the beginning.”
The band’s latest release, “Terra Firma” — produced by Gary King at Refraze and Dayton Sound Studios — kept that individualism in place, perhaps more so than on the first record. While “Loom” was more barebones, “Terra Firma” experiments with bizarre studio techniques — like reverse guitar tracks — and adds extracurriculars like radio interference, spoken word, thunderstorms and hand drums.
Despite playing with those novel sounds, the album is still as raw as the debut.
Amidst some personnel changes and a pandemic, Subterranean toured as heavily as possible, hitting the road to surrounding states, as well as to Nashville, a few festivals, regional venues and wherever else gigs could be had — which ultimately funded the next record. Coalt said that’s part of why the album’s called “Terra Firma”: the band finally reached solid ground after all the transition and turmoil.
Coalt says the band’s not anticipating hitting the road like it did before. Then again, he also had this to say about live music:
“There’s something that happens in our DNA when we see a live performance, when you’re standing there and you’re feeling the actual sound waves hitting you. I don’t think I’ll ever experience that through a screen or through a filter of any sort. There’s a directness that happens in a live show that to me is unprecedented.”
Subterranean does improvisation with intent. On principle, no two shows are alike. To describe the feeling is to be there amongst the sound waves, to hear a jam from a jam band.
Contact this contributing writer at branberry100@gmail.com.
How to go
What: Subterranean album release show w/ Sharon Lane & Danny Sauers
When: 8:30 p.m. Sept. 13
Where: Hidden Gem Music Club, 507 Miamisburg Centerville Road, Dayton
Cost: $10 advance, $15 at the door
Tickets: Online at the-hidden-gem-music-club.ticketleap.com
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