Flight's Kool

Powered by a love for music, Flight's Kool — a name inspired by one of its members' desire to become a helicopter pilot — has generated a local buzz with its different levels of rhythms and fusions.

Joe Cerami, 24, guitar and vocals; Ray Montgomery, 22, vocals and lyricist; Chris Ell, 23, percussion and guitar; Brenden Ell, 27, lead guitar; Jon Lewis, 25, bass guitar, and Steve Vitti, 25, drums, have known each other since high school and never thought they would be making music together.

Bill Bourke, Dan Yaeger, and Jon Collar, audio-recording engineers from the Naval Air Engineering Station in Lakehurst, helped Flight's Kool record its first album in Brenden Ell's living room.

"I feel like it gave it more of an organic quality that a lot of CDs are lacking nowadays," he said.

"Infestation," written by Cerami, is one of the songs in the album.

"It's about infesting the world with positive mentality and trying to make it better for all of us to live in," Ell added.

Although the band can't come up with a specific genre for Flight's Kool, Montgomery calls the music progressive, and the concept is based on different styles combined, including hip-hop, reggae, jazz, bluegrass and rock.

Vitti describes the inspiration for this band as a "train wreck of music," adding "Marvin Gaye, Sublime, Bob Marley, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and hip-hop are undeniably some of our inspirations."

The lyrics are based on life experiences, and they touch on a personal level, he said.

"Everyone adds their own touch to it," he added.

Montgomery is one the main lyricists in the band and has won several freestyle battles at clubs and a freestyle championship in Seaside Heights.

"I love to freestyle and rap," he said.

He said their biggest challenge as a band was learning to take their jobs as musicians seriously.

"We started off just joking around having fun, however, once we got so much response from the community and people started liking our music, we began playing in big shows and got a lot of responsibility thrown at us real quick, so we actually had to start structuring and making everything work.

"We represent New Jersey, and what this band is about is six dudes holding it down and trying to open up everybody's eyes to different styles of good music," he added.

The band started when Cerami and Chris Ell created a local buzz immediately after recording an acoustic demo in the summer of 2006.

The duo quickly started playing many gigs throughout the Ocean County area and started picking up new members including Montgomery, Vitti and Lewis.

The band grew in demand amongst club and bar owners after showing it could bring out a crowd with its unique style.

By the summer of 2007 the band had recruited Brenden Ell and went on to open for The Sublime Tribute Band, Badfish and Bob Marley's Legendary Wailers at Joey Harrison's Surf Club.

The band's future plans include incorporating the piano into its songs, and recruiting at least three more band members to play the horn, trumpet and saxophone to give its music a different vibe.

They will have a DVD and a CD that will be coming out sometime next year.

Also, they will be on iTunes by August.

Flight's Kool plays frequently at the Joey Harrison's Surf Club in Seaside Heights and at the Green Room at The Sawmill in Seaside Heights. It has played at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, the Tropicana in Atlantic City, The Saint in Asbury Park, a couple of clubs in New York and Philadelphia and at the Monmouth University in West Long Branch.

"As long as I'm playing music for the rest of my life, I'm happy that's all I care about. I don't want to have to wake up and do anything else," Brenden Ell said.

The band is trying to get on NACA, The National Association for Campus Activities.

They said they want to play in college shows mainly in New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia.

Flight's Kool will be opening for Badfish at The Stone Pony in Asbury on Aug. 2 for the third time.

For more information about the band and upcoming shows, visit www.myspace.com/flightskoolmusic or www.flights

koolmusic.com. - Asbury Park Press