How NANYANA Got Started... Say it with me people; "Nan.......Ya......Na", like Tanya but with an "N" then a "Na" at the end. That's how she taught me to say it. It's almost been a year together as "NanyaNa" and we are currently feeling very positive about the response for the band. It seems like only yesterday that Jason and I were sitting in Chris G.'s basement recording rudimentary demo versions of songs like "6 White Horses" and "Falling." I was playing in a band called "Scout" at the time and Jason was gigging regularly, on drums, with all kinds of blues projects. We would go to a little diner to eat and talk and Jason expressed interest in him playing guitar and me playing drums and writing for a project that we would helm. I was intrigued but felt a certain amount of investment in my current project. Problem was; the situation I was in wasn't good for me spiritually and wasn't, after a year or so, getting any significant attention. I've only been in 4 bands in my life. The first real deal was Body & Soul, which was a band that I co-founded along with Lee Banks and LaJon Witherspoon (Seven dust). We enjoyed rapid buzz worthiness, thanks to our cutting edge sound and superb vocals from Lajon, a born front man (Good luck on your 3rd album.. this is the one for you)! Anyway, my second real band was called "Scout", which really kind of fell on deaf ears, for some reason. Jean-Claude, actually filled in on Bass with us for about 6 months. That's when we first played together. He left that project to pursue his own musical interests. I remember him coming to jam with us for the project that Jason and I were working on. We kept telling him he should quit his band and come join us. However, we didn't really have much to join, at that point. We were working with our friend Lafayette on some tracks. We realized that Lafayette, although talented, wasn't on the same page as us, as far as direction. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that he had some different goals than us and it was a cool, amicable split (Good luck on your solo stuff Laf!). We initially asked NanyaNa Summer to sing with us. At the time she was playing some open mic. nights, locally and going to school. Jason and I asked her at the Borders Book Store and she was very excited. Then, Angela M., from Speech's band expressed interest in working with us. We jammed a bit with her, but realized, once again, that our musical directions were not going down the same path. I ended up inviting NanyaNa over to my place to work on some lyrics that I had written for a tune called "Vanity Fair." We sat in my parking lot in her car and listened to the demo tapes that Jason and I had recorded. She sang the lyrics, while I backed up things on the acoustic guitar. Other nights, we would go down to the Caribou Coffee house and sit on the back steps, Jason on acoustic guitar and me on acoustic bass as well as NanyaNa singing and working out parts. This was the beginning, a very humble beginning. I never realized how hard it would be to organize a band. Musicians are, as a character flaw, overall flakey people. Because we are artists, we tend to have grandiose ideas, but not a whole lot of discipline. Therefore it's exciting, but at the same time, almost daunting, to come up with a viable plan. However, God was moving behind the scenes. |
We ended up being asked by a friend, who books bands, to do a showcase on a Tuesday night for Smith's Ole Bar. We had about 5 songs completed, no bass player and no keyboardist. We asked Jean-Claude and Chris Elvis to come and practice with us to do the show. This was a temporary situation and both agreed. Later, we brought on Jason Passmoore to do some Sax work for us. We rehearsed and prepared for the gig. This was scary, 'cause from my perspective, none of the songs were really completed. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my compositions, so I'd say we were about to do this gig at about 65% completion. But, this was the a way to get ourselves motivated to really go on out and do something. If you wait for everything to be "finished" the way you see fit, you might never go out and do it. We played the show to about a 150 head count. The show went great! People were blown away by our fresh sound. Speech of Arrested Development was floored and came back stage to tell us personally that we had "something special here." Based on that show, Jean-Claude and Elvis joined up with us. Jason Passmoore played only that show and wanted to pursue some other types of projects. We accepted our new "full fledged members" with open arms and were very excited. Little known factoid: NanyaNa the band started out as "Fire and the Knife." After much advice we changed the name to NanyaNa's name: Simply "NanyaNa." We felt that it was an original name as well as a name that we could let the music define into something, rather than have the name somehow give people a pre-conceived notion of what we were about. I get asked a lot; "What kind of music is it?" In the new millennium, no one wants to answer this question with a definitive genre of music. Everyone wants to be original and different. Bands want to be the first to do something cutting edge. I have many opinions about this. First, when Jason (The Bird) got together, we'd talk about what kind of project we wanted to do. Jason was influenced heavily by blues, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Stevie Wonder. I was into, and still am, a huge "Seal, Sting and Sade" (got floor seats for the August show!!!!yipee!!) fan. We wanted to come up with a band that was not about boundaries, not about genres, not about concepts. We wanted to be free to create and play good music. It seems that record companies have a love/hate relationship with this concept. First they want you to be innovative, fresh, new and different. At the same time they want to market you as well. This becomes a "catch 22." If the band is so original, how can they be categorized to sell records? I don't have an answer for this. Dave Matthews is not a particular style of music. His sound draws from so many wells. However, he's like been one of the top grossing tours for the past few years. So, the record companies just need to have faith. Sometimes this is a hard thing to have, but it needs to be instituted none-the-less. NanyaNa, if put into a category in the record store, would be filed under "Rock." I hate this term, 'cause I think of AC/DC or the Rolling Stones when I hear that name. However, Michael Jackson is also filed under "Rock." It's a broad category. We are a rock band that draws on Blues, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Progressive Rock, Latin, Afro-Cuban, Metal, Classical, R & B, and World Music. You have 5 different musicians with CD collections that cover the entire gamut of the musical kaleidoscope. Therefore, until we all start listening to the same artists, we will always come together and collaborate making music that is diversified and unique. In the world this scenario is common. However, it's special when you can put these types of egos, attitudes and backgrounds together in a room and be unified to come to musical conclusions that are full fledged song ideas, converted into performance material. |
 The REST I write a lot of songs. My personal compositions for NanyaNa, thus far include; "1000 Miles", "Limbo", "Falling", "Who's To Blame", and "Scenes From A Question." However, as a songwriter I am limited by my ability to express myself thoroughly and completely through other instruments. I can play a little bass, guitar, and keyboard but I can't totally paint that picture. Without the help of the other musicians in NanyaNa, these above songs would never have seen the light of day as they are performed currently. I want to claim the glory for writing these songs but I can't, 'cause without my compadres they wouldn't be what they are.' I've written lyrics for; "Time's Running Out", "Vanity Fair", and contributed to music on "Six White Horses." Again, these are collaborations between the band and myself. I want to particularly lift up our lead singer NanyaNa Summer, for taking my sometimes convoluted lyrics and putting them into a discernable form and fashion, always staying true to my intended theme and message. I'm grateful that she's open to taking these things and asking what I was meaning to say in them. I usually give her more lyrics than can be said in a song, so she sometimes has to condense them or arrange them in a way that can be sung instead of spoken. She does an incredible job and in my book is, extremely talented, well beyond her 22 years! She's currently fine tuning her guitar playing skills, so we can add some rhythm guitar to our shows. This will also give her more opportunities to write some musical compositions herself. I only hope she wants to include me in that process. I love to write and love to create. I most feel at home in the collaboration seat rather than the sole songwriter seat, for reasons expressed above. We have been playing a lot lately and are becoming more comfortable with each other on stage and with dealing with an audience. We've played to as many as 1000+ people and as little as 8. We strive to have a great attitude regardless of the amount of people that are in the audience. Truth is; we enjoy playing with each other. We love to play, we love to perform, we love to write. We want to be part of the revolution that brings music back to being just about creativity and music (Remember the 60's, and 70's people?). Sure, we'll need some sort of image and all, who doesn't? But, we want to be songwriters and musicians first and performers second. I so much appreciate artists such as Sting and Dave Matthews. They simply do what they do. They don't have a specific focus on one type of music. I believe this leaves them an avenue for upward mobility and growth as musicians as well as performers. As long as the record industry will support these types of endeavors, there will also be somebody out there to give the public what it craves-- "Diversity." So to come full circle-- We have a rehearsal space now. We have a full fledged P.A. system. Everyone is currently happy with their instrument set-up, gear wise and we are poised to continue to make one fan at a time. We feel overall positive about our success thus far and are currently putting as many irons in the fire as possible, via our webmaster/manager/booking agent/stage manager/ publicist/ motivator/ business administrator/ financier/ "persistent widow", in Mr. Ed Parton (NanyaNa's real Dad)! Kudos, props, love and peace be unto you, brother, friend and confidant! We love you and you will always be our 6th member of NanyaNa. ............. more to come -Todd Damian damian@nanyana.com |