4Play

What's up: No, 4Play is not an explicit party game or an X-rated movie. It is a group of four guys who like to get together for the sake of rock'n' roll and having a fun time.

The band drew about 300 people into Godfather's Lounge in Colonial Heights last Saturday to enjoy a night of straight-up rock.

Screams and cheers oozed from the eclectic nightspot as if a national act were onstage. The crowd, with arms raised, clapping with the music, treated 4Play as if it were the creator of the songs the group covers.

Pearl Jam, Metallica, AC/DC and Puddle of Mudd are some of the artists 4Play incorporates into its arsenal of cover songs.

The band members describe their sound as an amalgamation of creativity and replication. Even though they do not write the music they play, the band members enjoy using their musical knowledge to create an atmosphere for their crowd.

"It's almost a yin-yang thing because you're trying to be in a cover band and play exactly what the CD sounds like," Cox said. "At the same time, you're musicians and you have your own ideas and your own creativity."

The members have tweaked their effect pedals and their mind-sets to reproduce the original sounds of the songs. The band tries to enter the mind of the original writers to fully understand the song they are going to play, Howard said.

The purpose of the band, Booth said, is to bring an exciting show to people who like to have fun and to listen to good music.

"We have a good time playing around with each other and that gets people in that fun mode, too," Booth said. "We're not trying to go anywhere but here."

Although the band does not have aspirations of becoming famous, its members, for now, are enjoying the thrill of playing live shows for friends, family and themselves.
Would you call the band a party band? "I hate to get grouped in that category," Cox said. "It's music that people get off on, that we get off on, but it's not, 'Hey we're playing a fraternity' type of thing." Howard described the band's show as something to make people feel good. "One thing that we like to provide is an enjoyable atmosphere. We don't try to be doing the rage thing. We don't want to promote angst. We're not playing to angry 17-year-olds. We like playing songs that everybody knows because it gets them involved," he said, adding that people like to sing along with him into the microphone.

Why do you choose to play covers? "Nobody is here to be rock stars," Cox said. "We're not trying to go anywhere but where we're at. We're just having fun playing songs." Hobbs said that all of the band members have full-time jobs. "We all have girlfriends or wives. We all have kids. We're all not trying to dump our full-time jobs and everything else and go off and be rock stars."

Do you plan to write original material? "We plan on doing some writing and getting some of our own stuff going when it comes around," Hobbs said, adding that the band has talked about the issue.

How would you describe the feeling you get when you are on stage? "There's nothing better than being onstage with these three guys," Cox said, "and having 300 people scream in your face for three hours. You're on the receiving end of all this energy from the crowd. It's impossible to describe"

Angie Castlebury

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- Richmond Times-Dispatch