Born A Number

Malan Darras selected as #1 unsigned artist to watch on XM Radio Channel 32 / Billy Zero's Radar Report. - XM Radio Channel 32

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer
2/24/2008

Watch the Malan Darras “Ink Blot” video, www.tulsaworld.com/ InkBlotVideo


The band concept was born from a feeling that most of us share.

That, sometimes, we feel very small — just one particle in an infinite mess.

“As human beings, we might be different in almost every way,” said Born a Number drummer Justin Siggins. “Yet technology, somehow, always brings us together.”

Indeed, technology morphed this music trio into something far more spectacular than its polymath parts.

Pop maestro Malan Darras, industrial/electro marvel Cody Bailey and percussionist Siggins will fill the Cain’s Ballroom stage with its unique, electro-infused wall of sound on Thursday, when their band opens for national altrock act 311.

Bailey and Darras have an interesting kinship: As a boy, Bailey, who grew up in Seminole, would often trek to Darras’ father’s home in nearby Ada to hear wild stories of Charlie Darras’ days as a drummer.

“He was an iconic figure,” said the dreadlocked Bailey in a recent interview in the downtown Tulsa World newsroom. “He’d tell us how the Doors did things — he’d tell us
his war stories.”

Though Bailey and Darras lived mere miles from each other, the youngsters never met. Bailey’s father, Tulsa bluesman and bassist Steve Bailey, also toured, but the boys’ fathers didn’t really know each other, either, said Bailey.

At one point, both young men also lived in Florida. Still, they didn’t meet.

Tulsa was the power boost — their separate moves here launched them into an orbit (and onto the road) with some of the world’s most talented musicians.

And, in many ways, Siggins was an integral part of that sequence.

“I met Justin while getting a tattoo nearly 15 years ago,” said the well-inked Darras.

At first, each of their stories seem random. But like Born a Number’s eclectic songs, each tale joins to write a vibrant, musical operating system, driven by Tulsa’s vastly diverse music communities.

“Yeah,” continued Siggins, “then, later, when I was ‘geeking out’ on music, I called Malan out of the blue. I said, ‘I’m working on a mariachi project.’ ”

Both men laughed at that memory, but in 2005, that experiment became local prog-rock act Manic State.

“It was more like The Mars Volta than it was mariachi,” admitted Darras.

Bailey, when not on the road as a drummer for Tulsa Sound legend Leon Russell, also worked with Siggins in the industrial electro-metal act Jakob.

All the while, Darras fronted popular and worldly pop/reggae act Rewake.

In 2006, when Rewake’s number was up (and Darras was laid up with a broken leg after being injured by a hit-and-run driver), he formed a “one-off, tongue-in- cheek” project he called the Malan Darras Orchestra.

His CD, “Who Is Malan D?” garnered explosive recognition in 2007 — a video for the single, “Ink Blot,” hit No. 1 on the MySpace video music charts with more than 500,000 views. Likewise, “shesadisease” was a No. 1 track on the XMU Channel 43 RADAR Report.

Darras quickly realized that an inspired man and his laptop could generate multiple hits and a loyal fan base. Transferring that energy to a live performance, however, would take the help of true music techies.

Darras recruited Bailey and Siggins to transform the album’s unique sound into a live reality, unveiled at the 2007 Spot Music Awards last October, where he was nominated for three awards, including album and artist of the year.

His former band, Rewake, was inducted into the Spot Music Award Hall of Fame.

That night, the three men realized that all those numbers — those countless 1’s and 0’s of the trio’s lives — added up to a original, organic sound that blended melodic electronica elements, keyboards, instrumentation and reggae-esque vocals.

Since then, the band’s been in the studio, recording demos and securing its ever-growing fanbase.

Definitely more than a number and undoubtedly more than a machine, Born a Number is on its way to becoming an uncommon statistic: success, on its own terms.



Jennifer Chancellor 581-8346
jennifer.chancellor@tulsaworld.com



311 WITH BORN A NUMBER


When
Doors open 7 p.m. Feb. 28

Where
Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N. Main St.

Tickets
$37.25 in advance; $39.75 day of show, available at Reasor’s, Starship Records & Tapes, Cain’s box office, by phone at (866) 443-8849 and online at www.tulsaworld.com/gettix. - Tulsa World