Local band, Gifts From Enola, finishes second national tour
Posted on August 28, 2008
Gifts From Enola is a band of few words. In fact, Gifts From Enola is a band without a singer – but the members prefer it that way. In this “American-Idol” age, the Harrisonburg-based group feels that so many bands have singers who have a microphone, but nothing to say through it.
“There’s a lot of music these days where there’s a whole lot of talking, but if you focus on the singer, he’s not saying a damn thing,” said C.J. DeLuca, a JMU senior and one of the band’s guitarists. “We’re trying to make music that says everything, without saying anything at all.”
The lack of a singer isn’t the only thing that makes this instrumental, experimental rock band unique.
“When we first started doing this, we made a rule, and that rule is that we don’t have any rules,” guitarist Andrew Barnes said. “We’re not going to be this kind of band, or that kind of band.”
Barnes and Nate Dominy, the band’s bassist, met during their freshman year while living in Eagle Hall. Shortly after, they met DeLuca through friends and invited drummer Jordan Endahl, who grew up with Barnes, to join the band. The group’s name was Barnes’s idea, and essentially means finding the good through the bad, as Enola is a reference to the World War II bomber that dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
Barnes, a JMU senior from Charlottesville, can’t read sheet music, but he can create some fascinating guitar riffs. Though most of the members have been playing their respective instruments since junior high, they have little or no experience with musical theory. They don’t do their own promotions, but have a considerable fan base in the Valley.
“There aren’t a lot of bands that sound like them in the area, so it’s cool to have them around,” said Tim Skirven, a 2008 graduate, who has photographed the band on several occasions.
The band just returned to Harrisonburg from their second national tour, which spanned the East Coast and Midwest and as far as the coast of California. Six months of planning and having last summer’s tour in the bag made this summer’s tour a lot smoother. In addition to knowing how to book better shows and making connections while on the road last year, “we have more of a feel for each other and how things should sound,” said DeLuca.
The group never practices because Endahl is a Virginia Tech senior, but when DeLuca, Dominy and Barnes create a demo, they add electronic drum beats and then send it to Endahl, so he has a rough idea of what to play at shows.
It took Gifts a year to create their first album, and the band is more than halfway done with their new album.
“I like looking at albums as a whole artistic statement, like having lyrics or poetry and artwork and how it’s all packaged and presented,” Dominy said. “It’s more than just what it sounds like. It’s how it gets to you.”
They will take this semester to finish the album, taking advantage of Dominy’s independent study through the School of Music to record some songs.
“We don’t need to rush this, as much as we want people to hear it,” said Barnes.
Gifts isn’t really influenced by other bands, but rather inspired by other musicians and other things as well.
“It’s not just music; everything plays a part in what you make,” Dominy said.
DeLuca added: “Reading, people you meet, movies…life.” DeLuca, a Richmond native, used one word to describe Gifts From Enola: honest.
The band collaboratively and almost effortlessly produces multi-movement masterpieces that flow seamlessly, engaging listeners to follow them on an instrumental and artistic journey. The songs are complex, contemporary symphonies, and are usually conceived as improvisations that constantly change through the song-writing and recording process and even in the band’s performances. “Whenever I get too comfortable when I’m playing, I like to just improvise and play the notes that I know I would never play ordinarily,” said Dominy.
The display of colorful, rhythmic lights that accompany most performances are manned by Wade Vanover, or LJ Stank as the band likes to call him.
Vanover, a close and personal friend of the band, said the light show “started more as just something to do at The Bag [a local venue] for fun, but eventually escalated into something of a staple of the live show.” Vanover built the light boxes that Gifts uses at their shows and creates his own art while the band plays, almost like another instrument.
“There’s nothing better than having someone coming up after the show and pointing at a briefcase full of foot switches, zip-ties and power strips and saying it was the coolest thing they’ve ever seen,” Vanover said. “Plus I like telling the sound guy that we don’t need their crappy, expensive house lights.”
Gifts From Enola is officially signed with Mylene Sheath, a record company co-owned by a couple based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dominy’s room seconds as a recording studio when necessary. Although they get a satisfying thrill from creating and completing an album, the band thrives on playing live music.
Barnes said, “I think the satisfactions of having a record that you made and you really like is one of the best things ever, but there’s not instant gratification like playing live.”
By the standards set forth by mainstream music, Gifts From Enola doesn’t really have a chance to make it big. However, the band isn’t concerned about getting signed by a major label like many musicians because they are overwhelmingly passionate about the music they create and are content with continuing to compose meaningful and fulfilling art. “I don’t know anything else I’d rather be doing,” said Dominy. “We can take this as far as we want to take it, it’s all about the work you want to put into it and how much you want to put up with to do what you want to do.” Gifts From Enola is going places.
