GILROY —
”
Crutch! Crutch! Crutch! Crutch!
”
The chant grew louder and louder from the crowd Saturday night
at the Gilroy Gaslighter. Many of them donning T-shirts supporting
their beloved Gilroy-based band, the Rivals, the fans wanted to
hear the group’s traditional closing song.
GILROY — “Crutch! Crutch! Crutch! Crutch!”
The chant grew louder and louder from the crowd Saturday night at the Gilroy Gaslighter. Many of them donning T-shirts supporting their beloved Gilroy-based band, the Rivals, the fans wanted to hear the group’s traditional closing song.
But the show’s promoter, Powerslave.com, had cut them short after a 20-minute, four-song set. Sora, the band going on stage before the Rivals, didn’t get off-stage on time, and, despite a large hometown crowd of nearly 200 people, the promoters wanted to get back on schedule.
Singer Matt Reed apologized to the crowd and said, “I guess that was the last song of the night.” He threw his microphone down in disgust, and the band began to pack up.
The crowd became restless and started booing, which was more than Rivals guitarist Zack Alves could take. He could handle not being allowed to finish the set and keeping the promoter happy – but not at the expense of his fans. He picked his electric guitar back up, looked over at Reed and said, “Let’s do it.”
Alves guitar blasted the opening notes to “Crutch,” and the crowd went wild. Reed plugged his microphone back in and yelled to the crowd, “You better dance; This is going to piss a lot of people off!”
If anyone was angry, it sure wasn’t the Rivals fans, who began to fill the mosh pit and scream with joy as the band played for another three and a half minutes. Although the other bands and the promoter were unhappy, everyone in a Rivals T-shirt came out of the theater with grins and met the band later on by thanking them for a wild show.
“It caused a stir, to say the least,” said Alves, a 26-year-old who moved to Gilroy just before beginning high school, as he finished packing up his equipment in the alley behind the Gaslighter. “The promoter cut us short. We wanted to keep them happy, but the crowd was mad. They might have left (before the other two bands performed) if we didn’t finish.”
Reed agreed.
“We don’t do that because we’re rebels,” he said. “They wanted to hear another song. Our show is like an idea, and they were trying to cut off our idea.”
The Rivals are used to headlining area shows but insisted on going third out of five bands for this show because the Sacramento-based band Luxt was releasing their new CD.
While all the other bands looked like hard rockers – dyed hair, studded belts and all the attitude that comes with it – the Rivals look more like four average Joes who accidentally walked into the wrong concert.
Guitarist Zach Alves is clean-cut, wearing jeans, old-school black-and-white Converse shoes and a T-shirt reading “Quit work, make music;” Dave Karan, the band’s bassist, is a thin guy with long curly hair that falls down past his shoulders; drummer Jim Azevedo, 28, is athletically built, wearing warm-up pants, running shoes and a T-shirt; and Reed, donning a T-shirt endorsing the band Bush, always greets people with a big grin and a wave. Not one of them looks like they have any place on stage at a hard rock concert.
“We’re just four dorks,” said Reed, a 21-year-old Gavilan student who has lived in Gilroy his whole life.
Azevedo said the band isn’t about image.
“My whole philosophy about the band is a lot of people follow the status quo and think they are supposed to look like what they do.”
The Rivals may not look the part, but they definitely sound it. The band not only can put on a show, but they also try to use their music to enlighten and make change.
“We make you think,” Reed said. “I always say, “Thank you for your mind, thank you for your ears.’ ”
The Rivals opened this particular show with an anti-war poem, with Reed telling the crowd and the world that “Your voice does not represent mine.” Reed also mentioned the anti-war protest in San Francisco before the band opened with the song “Falling On Deaf Ears.”
Reed said his goal is to promote an open dialogue on issues.
“It doesn’t matter if you agree with us, come and talk to us,” he said. “Stand up for what you believe even if it makes you bleed.”
Reed couldn’t be happier that what he calls “the hair bands of the ’90s” are fading out – bands like Limp Bizkit – that he says are always complaining but never trying to fix anything.
“You can’t be angry unless you have a solution,” he said.
The band’s show is just as fan-interactive and emotionally driven as it is about issues. Reed, Alves, Karan and Azevedo leave everything on the stage. During this show, Reed swung his microphone around so violently that it broke, and he went out into the crowd on two occasions – once to go out and break up the mosh pit when it got out of control, and a second time to hug fans during the long intro to the song “Osmosis.”
“A lot depends on our live show,” Reed said. “You have to make it worth it. Unless we’re sick or dying, you’ll get a show.”
But Alves doesn’t want to play for the same group of people night in and night out. He hopes the band can make it big someday.
“We love the Gaslighter because it’s our home town,” he said. “But we’ve always had aspirations of doing bigger and better things. We really want to go as far as we can.”
But that means breaking what some in the area call “The Gilroy Jinx.”
It may have started long before, but Alves and Reed saw it first-hand. It all began just five years ago when the Gilroy-based band Salmon was the talk of the town. Back then, the Gaslighter Theater was the hot place to be, and Salmon was going to be the band that made the big time. Then, suddenly and without much reason, Salmon broke up and disappeared.
“It kind of made everyone say ‘Well, that was our only hope.’ ” Alves remembered. “We’ve seen more bands than ever breaking up. There’s so many bands that whine and give up. We’ve got the bands, and we’ve got to work at it. We want to succeed and we want everyone around us to succeed.”
Getting respect outside their hometown has been hard-fought, but the Rivals have worked to gain a following all over the Bay Area and recently made a trip out to play at the Hard Rock Cafe in Denver.
“We would get laughed at first,” Reed said. “But then they’d say ‘This little Gilroy band can do it.’ ”
“To an outsider, it would look like were busy,” he said. “But we’re still here.”
While working to make it in the music world, members of the Rivals at times have been hard-pressed to convince their families and friends to put up with the time and money the band has spent on their music. They recently spent most of the summer and hundreds of dollars to release their first CD, “Awakening,” and have rented out practice space in San Jose with 24-hour access to play.
“We used to practice at Jim’s house, but it would inhibit our creativity,” said Karan, who added that in the interests of Jim’s roommates, the band would have to cut practices off at 10 p.m., even if they were having a spurt of creativity.
“We’ve pissed off our families, our girlfriends, and we’ve emptied our wallets.” Alves said. “But if I wanted to stop this train tomorrow, I couldn’t.”
The Rivals took their name because each of its four members comes from different styles of music. Inside the band’s CD case there is an image of four hands pulling a chain in different directions, showing how their different styles can still work for their own unique sound.
“Everyone has their opinion, but it never breaks,” Reed said.
Between the four band members, there is only one band that all of them can agree on liking – Tool.
“We’re four totally different people,” Alves said. “For some reason we all get along.”
Even with differing music backgrounds and styles, Karan, 27, who musically is the most technical of the group, said he saw an opportunity for something special.
“I knew some of the stylistic influences meshed,” he said. “and when we found (Azevedo), it just clicked.”
Whether the band makes it or not in the long run, Azevedo said he will never think twice about the time and effort he has put into the band.
“I think I’d rather think big and fail,” he said. “There’s going to be enough stories and things that have happened to write a book. We don’t want to have anything to regret.”
