Captain of Industry

* In an age of synthetic dance music and generic hard rock, the four members of Captain of Industry have crafted a memorable collection of skewed pop songs.

The group's excellent self-titled debut album on Team Evil Records manages to sound fresh and new while harkening back to such classic post-punk acts as the Smiths, U2 and XTC, with dashes of King Crimson, Don Caballero and Radiohead tossed in for good measure. Captain of Industry - Nathan Peters (vocalist/keyboardist), Kevin Oldfield (guitar), Ian Sperry (bass) and John Lakes (drums) - has officially been playing live less than a year, but the four members are longtime friends and the camaraderie is apparent in the diverse and dynamic music, which evolved during a series of informal jam sessions.

"It wasn't even supposed to be a new project," said Lakes, sitting with bandmates Peters and Sperry in the "lounge" area of Team Evil's subterranean headquarters and recording studio.

"We were just messing around, and it kind of happened. A lot of it was pretty free-form. We actually played together for about a year before we even played a show."

When the group made its live debut in January, the guys only had a few songs completed.

"When we first started playing, I only had lyrics written for two songs so I made up different words our first three shows," Peters admits.

"Losing my car was a big motivator for me. I was riding the bus and just tweaking over stuff, and I started writing a lot of lyrics."

The quartet quickly got serious, and in March, just a few months after the live debut, COI began recording with Noel Benford of Team Evil Records and Chris Common at Danger Room Studios.

"The nice aspect of spending all that time jamming is that we were closer to being ready to do an album when we started playing out than a lot of bands, certainly ones I've been in," Lakes said.

"Another key thing was we recorded at Chris' studio, but we mixed here so we had time to spend on it. Anything that is well-produced or well-put together can be credited to Noel. He spent countless hours down here putting in that extra bit of effort to make sure things were correct."

The hard work paid off. Captain of Industry has crafted the best debut rock album to come out of Dayton in years, and it's one of my favorite 2003 releases in any genre.

I can't wait to hear what these guys come up with in a year or two when the four musicians really start to gel.

Rock Insider, by free-lance arts and music writer Don Thrasher, gives a behind-the-scenes view of the Dayton music scene. It appears every other week. Contact Thrasher by e-mail at donaldthrasher8@aol.com.

- Dayton Daily News

Captain of Industry (narrowly escape Dayton’s undertow)
by: Don Thrasher

For a town its size, Dayton, Ohio is home to an inordinately large number of rock bands, particularly of the punk rock and indie rock variety. The thing is the city also seems to have some mysterious high-suction undertow that invariably prevents most of the area's homegrown talent from traveling more than a few hours away from his or her favorite neighborhood tavern.

For every Guided By Voices, Shesus, Swearing at Motorists, Lab Partners or The Story Changes that manages to carve out a modest slice of national/international popularity, there are literally dozens of talented bands that for one reason or another never achieve anything above local popularity.

”Dayton can be a black hole. It’s a comfort zone is all it is,” said Nathan Peters of Captain of Industry. The keyboardist and vocalist for the Dayton-based band is sitting with band mates John Lakes (drums) and Ian Sperry (bass) in the cluttered “lounge” area of Team Evil Records' subterranean headquarters and recording studio beneath BHA Piano Center. Guitarist Kevin Oldfield is absent due to work obligations.

”At the same time, it’s really neat to be in a town like Dayton,” Lakes said. “With all its faults and flaws, there is a great pool of talent and there are a lot of people who have inspired us. I know we’ve all been influenced by so many good Dayton bands.”

If there has been any new Dayton act in the past five years that has the potential to break free of the black hole, it’s this adventurous prog-pop band. Although Captain of Industry has only been officially playing live 11 months, Nathan Peters (vocals/keyboards), Kevin Oldfield (guitar), Ian Sperry (bass) and John Lakes (drums) are longtime friends and the camaraderie is apparent in the diverse and dynamic music, which evolved during a series of informal jam sessions originally staged as a diversion from their other various bands.

“It wasn’t even supposed to be a new project,” Lakes said. “We were just messing around and it kind of happened. A lot of it was pretty free form. We actually played together for about a year before we even played a show.”

”It’s never been an issue where anybody wanted to rush anything,” Peters added. “We wanted to keep getting better and improving on the songs we have. We’re always moving forward.”

"For a long time, Nathan was still playing with Vinyl Dies and they were still doing shows,” Lakes continued. “We would get together a lot of times and just jam and a lot of ideas were created there that would later become songs. It really was later, when we all started getting serious and decided we were going to get a name and start playing shows that the song structures, lyrics and titles started coming together.”

Although the group was becoming more serious and focused, there was still a free form element involved when Captain of Industry made its live debut in January 2003. At that point, the quartet still only had a few songs completely written and arranged, but that didn’t prevent them from taking their music to the people.

”When we first started playing I only had lyrics written for two songs, so I made up different words every time for our first three shows,” Peters admits. “Losing my car was a big motivator for me. I was riding the bus and just tweaking over stuff and I started writing a lot of lyrics.”

Pleased with the initial response and the direction of the new material, Peters, Oldfield, Sperry and Lakes quickly buckled down and began fine-tuning the songs. In March, just a few months after their live debut, the members of COI entered Danger Room Studios in Dayton with engineer Chris Common and Team Evil labelmeister Noel Benford, who co-produced the material with the band.

With the able assistance of Benford and Commons, the four members of Captain of Industry were able to craft the compelling collection of songs that became the group's excellent new self-titled Team Evil debut. The 11-song disc manages to sound fresh and new while harkening back to such classic post-punk acts as The Smiths, U2, REM and XTC, with dashes of King Crimson, Don Caballero and Radiohead tossed in for good measure.

”The nice aspect of spending all that time jamming is that we were closer to being ready to do an album when we started playing out than a lot of bands, certainly ones I’ve been in,” Lakes said. “Another key thing was we recorded at Chris’ studio but we mixed here so we had time to spend on it. Anything that is well produced or well put together can be credited to Noel because he spent countless hours down here putting in that extra bit of effort to make sure things were correct.”

The hard work definitely paid off. The modern pop-rock songs are bursting with memorable melodic hooks, clever rhythmic shifts, tasteful arrangements and Oldfield's arsenal of guitar tones and effects pedals.

”John and I have pop minds,” Nathan said, explaining the focus on - Sponic Zine

Alice was beginning to tire of perusing the record bins, and seeing nothing that had caught her interest, she peeped twice at the records in her sister’s hands. While she respected her sister’s taste in Blur, The Pixies, Radiohead, Coldplay, The Beach Boys, South and Ben Folds, she wondered if she might find a single purchase; something that blended all of the psychedelic mind-play, and cosmic pop goodness of all of those bands.

She was pondering making her way over to the used CD bin when a white rabbit in a Queen t-shirt scurried past her and up to the new releases bin. That’s when something remarkable happened, she heard the rabbit mutter to itself, “Oh dear, they must not have stocked Captain of Industry’s LP yet.” Burning with curiosity, it flashed across Alice’s mind, “I’ve never seen a rabbit with a Queen t-shirt before.” Alice hurried across the store just in time to see the rabbit pop under the cluttered bins.

In one moment, Alice went after it and found herself falling down a very deep tunnel. When Alice landed, she found herself in a strange little room with three legged tables and crooked cupboards, the rabbit was nowhere to be found. But as she brushed herself off she heard it; bell-tone guitars launched into orbit by scurrying drums, the rambling of what she though was a Rhoades organ, and the benevolent, echoing tenor of Captain of Industry’s Nathan Peters on opener “Oscillating Circuits.” She noticed a small door, crouching as she turned the knob and ducked to make her way through it. On the other side she noticed a large mushroom growing near her and she stretched herself up on tip toe and peeped over the edge where her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, who was quietly smoking a long hookah, to the slow-burn pop sounds of “Statistics Say.”

The caterpillar says, “It’s all in your head” while the music changed, and the smoke billowing from the caterpillar’s mouth suddenly conjured fantastic, filthy psyche-rock hallucinations. Offering Alice the pipe end, she and the caterpillar puffed their way through “The Car Song.” That’s when she noticed there was a table set out under a tree in front of a house where the March Hare and the Hatter were sitting down for tea.

Alice ignored the munchies for long enough to notice the Hatter’s uncanny similarity to the singer from Space Hog, while Captain of Industry set the soundtrack for the occasion with “Indie Rock Assassination.” Between them was a dormouse, fast asleep, on the cushiony melancholy, and taffy pull feedback produced by C.O.I. guitarist Kevin Oldfield during “Sockama.” Offering Alice a glass of wine, which tasted suspiciously like Red Bull, the March Hare said “Let’s have some fun.” The Hatter held a tea cup to his ear, hoping to catch every second of the Pet Sounds by-way-of Ben Folds sounding “It Might Be Me.” Alice thought, “This is the best tea party I ever was at in all my life,” and wondered whether they’d invite C.O.I.’s fantastic and skillful drummer John Lakes to the next get-together.

While Alice wandered between the brightly colored flowerbeds along the nearest trail, she hummed the Beatles-inspired harmonies of “Good Side Son,” stopping to smell the subtle Radiohead-like flourishes along the way. The path finally reached a carefully manicured croquet ground where she noticed the dead-sexy king of hearts (who slightly resembled Brainaic’s Tim Taylor) coming towards her. Winking once to gain her attention, the gentleman launched into the falsetto chorus of, “I can tell you what I want it’s under your belt/You can tell me what you want it’s under my belt.” Just beyond him, playing-card soldiers frantically danced the length of an immense piano. Exhausted, the cards take a break while the guys from Captain of Industry electro-skronked their way through the remainder of “It’s Under My Belt.”

Alice pondered the king’s proposition, and agrees to take a roll in the hay during Captain of Industry’s highlight opus, “Texas Killing Machine,” which seems to wander through a sultry aural cosmos once navigated by Rufus Wainwright, Stevie Wonder, and even (C.O.I. is gonna kill me for this) Phish. Looking for some way to peel herself away from the king, who kinked things up with a hedgehog and flamingo (don’t ask!), she notices a mischievous grin in the shadows. Alice likes the way the Cheshire Cat hums along to Ian Sperry’s meandering bass, and the way his hair stands on end during the Bowie-like freakouts of “We Are Transmission.”

Alice felt someone tugging her arm, drawing her reluctantly out of the sweet pop haze of “Seven Eight.” Her sister was staring hard at her; they were back in the record store. “Oh, I've had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange adventures of hers that you have just been reading about. Her sister said it WAS a curious and wonderful dream, but that it was time to check out. As they left the store - Bettwareckonize.com