The Heavy Sandwich

Last Halloween, five men entered Scandal’s on Rock Hill’s Cherry Road dressed as different versions of Steve Martin from the 1979 film “The Jerk.”
The gas station jerk, the newly-rich jerk, the carnival-working jerk, the karate jerk and the broken, disheveled jerk with his pants around his ankles made up a band that’s been in Rock Hill since 2004, more or less, and they played Radiohead’s “The Bends” album all the way through.
If you didn’t see it, here’s a chance to redeem yourself.
The Heavy Sandwich will play at 8 tonight at McHale’s on Main, 122 E. Main St., downtown Rock Hill, for the release of the group’s first album, “Songs about Stuff Sometimes.”
It’s a 13-track modge podge of jam band, prog rock and folksy Carolina nostalgia, recorded over the past year in the back of Woody’s Music.
The band will be be playing “stuff” from the new album, a discography that stretches topics from the Catawba River and the South Carolina Lowcountry to an A-frame house where the band first performed.
“We tried to use lyrics that add a sense of place,” said Ashley Peeples, bassist, guitarist and lead vocalist for The Heavy Sandwich. “Having a CD come out is going to help connect people to that.”
The Heavy Sandwich didn’t begin in the classified section looking for bandmates. Peeples, 32; Matt Thomasson and Adam Scull, both 30; John Nipe, 35; and Stuart Sealy, 28, met through the Rock Hill school system and have been playing together in arrangements since their teens and years before.
They’re already planning for album number two, and the band is eager to get out a disc of the originals they’ve played on stage at civic shows and area pubs.
You may have seen them open for bands Parallel and A-1-A at April’s Come-See-Me Tailgate Party. At this July’s Red White and Boom, a local bash put on by the city of Rock Hill in the Old Town Amphitheater, they’ll play a full Allman Brothers set with two extra drummers and a keyboard player.
Sandwich members’ influences range from Led Zeppelin to Elvis Costello, but they’ll take cover requests from any Skynyrd or Beatles fan. They most recently mastered a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” in reggae tempo and dubbed it “Ja Train.”
“When people hear the name ‘Heavy Sandwich,’ they think heavy metal,” Peeples said, “but it’s not about the sound of it being heavy. It’s about getting more than you expected.”
One treat that Heavy Sandwich fans have begun to expect is costumes: bees, wedding dresses, cheeseburger hats, fake mustaches over real mustaches, Charlie Brown.
“We almost wore ‘Star Trek’ costumes to this interview,” Thomasson joked to The Herald.
But tonight’s event isn’t just about promoting the debut album, bandmates said. It’s about promoting the York County music scene, a generation of musicians who have been around for decades.
They include musicians such as Tim and Jeff Jones, Dave Wooten and the band Truckstop Preachers, plus a slew of others, who have developed their craft without a central music hub like some of Rock Hill’s neighbors. And many are turned away from those hubs because of a lack of promotion.
“Having limited venues in Rock Hill has created an incubator for musicians here,” Peeples said. “A lot of people play together and do things together, and we’ve all been doing that for years.”
The night will open with performances by locals Gregory Ellis, Craig Lentz, Jason Walker, members of Neighbor’s Acres and more.
“You can dance if you want to,” Peeples said. “We’re working hard to create a Rock Hill music scene and original, high-quality music. There’s a lot here if people just pay attention.”
- Christy Mullins • The Herald