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Guitar-Rockers Wheat Reveal A Bit Of Themselves

Massachusetts band loses anonymity, adds melody on second album, Hope and Adams.

When Wheat released their first album, Medeiros, in 1998, the band

assumed a Residents-like anonymity, without the big plastic eyeballs.

No names, no album credits, nothing in their press kit that would tell

you anything about the people who made the music.

With this week's release of their second album, Hope and Adams,

the Taunton, Mass., guitar rockers have come out of hiding, but not by

much. "What is expressed in the music is what we want to share with people,"

guitarist Ricky Brennan said. "Is it really so important where it comes

from?"

Brennan would say this: The members of the band — singer/guitarist

Scott Levesque, drummer Brendan Harney, bass player Kevin Camara and

Brennan — are mostly in their late 20s, two of them went to art

school and they all have "pretty serious" day jobs.

"We're all basically your average suburban boys who come from the same

places that most of us do," Brennan said. "The hope is that other people

can identify with the music for those reasons."

While Medeiros got Wheat pegged as a lo-fi, downer band, Hope

and Adams is more melodic and upbeat. Though similarities to lo-fi

avatars Pavement and Sebadoh abound, there's no hipster irony or moping

self-pity. The lyrics are often metaphorical, with such lines as "Your

love is a parking lot" from "San Diego" (RealAudio

excerpt). Brennan said the message of the music is in the sound

itself.

"We always joke around that we're more about concept than execution," he

said. "We're not great players as far as chops go, but we spend so much

time on the aesthetics. We want something that's beautiful, that's

colorful, where there's more implied than just spelling it out."

The album was co-produced by Mercury Rev multi-instrumentalist Dave

Fridmann, who also produced the Flaming Lips' recent The Soft Bulletin.

Fridmann said Wheat's songwriting drew him to the band.

"The songs really get into your head and make you think, like a smell

from childhood that overtakes you when you least expect it," Fridmann

said.

Wheat recorded the album in two weeks in January at Fridmann's Tarbox

Road Studios in Cassadaga, N.Y., with Flaming Lips bassist Michael Ivins

as assistant engineer. Brennan said Fridmann and Ivins helped him and

his bandmates realize the sounds they heard in their heads.

"If we said we wanted the bass to sound like an elephant crawling out of

the mud, they could do that," he said.

The songs on Hope and Adams are filled with musical details, such

as the clicking percussion and jangling bell that run through the album's

third track, "Don't I Hold You" (RealAudio

excerpt). Brennan thanked R&B superstar Janet Jackson for that

touch.

"When you're recording, you listen to a lot of other music to get a

reference point," he said. Fridmann threw on Jackson's Velvet Rope

so the band could hear how high, percussive noises filled out that album's

bass-heavy mix.

"It widens and expands the sound, and it drives the song," Brennan said,

though he also said too much of that kind of accompaniment can ruin a

good thing. "You've got to be really tasteful. It's the [late painter]

Bob Ross 'this little tree needs a friend' kind of thing."

Hope and Adams has more hooks than its predecessor, but its moody,

quirky vibe will probably keep it from mainstream radio airplay, though

it quotes Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and Tom

Petty's "Free Fallin'."

"We're an indie band, no doubt, but we'd like to get away from that snooty,

indie-rock snob [attitude]," Brennan said.

Wheat, whose albums have been released by Chicago indie label Sugar Free

Records, are just trying to make the kind of music they'd like to listen

to, Brennan said.

"I just saw Tom Petty play, and those guys are in their 40s and 50s, and

that stuff rocks more than any of that Limp Bizkit stuff," he said. "The

thing that was beautiful about it was that there were people of all age

groups, because there's that universal thing where everybody attaches to

a good song."

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