Emporia State instructor, alumni team up to create hard rock trio

Eric Sonnakolb / The Bulletin

Emporia State alumni Jimmy Kegin playing bass with his former band The People’s Punk Band. Kegin will be playing with ESU instructor Matt Lang and ESU graduate Doug Stormont tomorrow at Beer:30 as the hard rock trio Evil Love Drones.

The trio of Jimmy Kegin, Doug Stormont and Emporia State Spanish instructor of Spanish Matt Lang have combined their years of experience as musicians to form the Emporia-based hard rock band called Evil Love Drones.

“We’ve know each other over 20 years and played in various things,” Kegin said. “This time it was kind of out of necessity, we really wanted to do something and we’ve never quit doing what we love.”

The band played their first show together on Halloween and they are excited to bring their music to the public.

“It feels good,” Stormont said. “I finally feel a sense of accomplishment writing and performing these songs. I look forward to shelving these older songs and writing and performing the new stuff we have in store.”

Because of the three’s longtime friendship, it only made sense for them to form a band together.

“This is actually a good mix of personalities,” Lang said. “In the past, I’ve had to deal with bands that didn’t get along too well and that didn't always have a lot in common. This is completely different.”

Stormont has been recording songs for his original Evil Love Drones project since 2006 and has had a song featured on the Topeka radio station V100's local music show “Download.”

“He did all that in his basement and I think its brilliant,” Kegin said. “We’re just trying our best to do it live, which ain’t easy.”

Stormont has a number of songs on his MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/evillovedrones. All of the instruments and vocals on the page are by Stormont.

“What you hear on there is definitely what we do,” Kegin said. “But with Matt and me, we bring our own things to it. Sometimes it just changes a little bit sometimes it changes drastically but for now you can just check out the website.”

The band will also be performing songs written by Lang. According to the band, the main difference between Stormont’s music and Lang’s is their complexity.

“Doug’s music is more complex rhythmically,” Lang said. “He does an incredible job with time changes that are not only interesting, but fun to hear for the non-musician as well. My music is really just four-on-the floor rock.”

“With this stuff, you have to think a lot,” Kegin said. “I don’t know what that sounds like but there’s a lot of math in rock sometimes. There’s a lot of intricate things, a lot of time changes, a lot of chord changes. We really have to be on top of it. We’ve put a lot of thought into this and I really think people will dig it.”

According to Stormont, the hardest thing about starting the band was translating his prerecorded tracks into a live performance as his music features a number of changes in the music’s beats per measure.

“I never planned on drumming and singing simultaneously, so there was a learning curve,” Stormont said. “Most of the songs aren’t straight forward 4/4, there are a lot of 7's, 11's, and even 15’s, that makes singing and playing a challenge. It takes a while to wrap your head around.”

At first the trio thought they might perform under two band names, one performing Lang’s material, the other Stormont’s, but eventually they made the decision to combine the two under the Evil Love Drones name.

The trio had take some time to work out their musical differences, but they quickly found common ground and are ready to play.

“Everyone in this band is a rhythm section player,” Lang said. “Jimmy and Doug are obviously the rhythm section in this band, but I played bass for my previous bands. This time around, I'm on guitar, which I’ve been playing as long as the bass.”

According to Lang, it didn’t take much for the three to blend their styles together.

“Actually, the guitar sound I’m going for fits in perfectly with Doug’s tunes,” Lang said. “So, it hasn’t been difficult to make the songs blend as one band. My biggest challenge was the learning curve for Doug’s music and figuring out how to do it correctly. That took a while.”

The band hopes to start playing shows in Kansas City and Lawrence in the coming months.

“We definitely want to get up into the city,” Kegin said. “Because we’re all from Emporia we like to jam with people there and have fun. But we’d definitely like to play some bigger shows.”

The members of the band also hope to record together in the near future.

“I think that we no doubt are going to continue to write and record,” Lang said. “What that will sound like, I don’t know, but should be an interesting and a fun process. More than anything, though, we just want to rock.”

The members of Evil Love Drones see tomorrow’s performance as the beginning of a long term project.

“This is a permanent outfit,” Stormont said. “We are all dedicated professionals with a strong work ethic. I see us taking this as far as we can because we have unlimited potential and plenty of talent. The chemistry with this band is super positive and very creative, the ideas are boundless. We’ll be around for a long time to come.”

Evil Love Drones will be performing with another new band, Emporia’s Machine Garden, at 10 p.m. tomorrow at Beer:30, 402 Merchant St.