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Harlan


Band: Harlan

Members: Erik Gross, guitar and vocals; David Parker, drums and backing vocals; Peter Shuey, bass; Will Anstine, keyboards; Chris Dempwolf, lead guitar

Who we talked to: Parker

How did you guys get together? In eighth grade, me and (Gross), the lead singer, started practicing and just jamming around. But back then, I was playing guitar and now I ended up on drums. He got his friend (Shuey) to come and it all came together this year. Within the past year, we started writing songs and just going from there.

Where did the name come from? We practice at my house, and one day, we were just all kind of sitting around trying to think of a name. We just thought we would (name the band) after the street we practice on.

Can you describe your sound and style? It's post-hardcore. It's not as popular, but definitely good music. It's heavier music, but not with screaming. Hardcore is really heavy guitar parts and fast drumming and screaming. Post-hardcore is like a softened down version. It still has the heavier parts and stuff . . . but there's more singing.

What are your influences? We like a lot of newer stuff. Underoath (was) a big influence from the start. Then bands like Left to Fall, Dance Gavin Dance and just a whole bunch of new bands that have been coming out within the past year. Paramore is another (influence) for us.

Are there any local places you like to play? Right now, we've just been playing shows in the York and Harrisburg area. We're playing (at) a festival this summer. We're looking to book shows every weekend. We're trying to find a good booking agent. Right now, we're still just booking ourselves. We really like Club 19.

Do you guys play any covers? We play covers sometimes when we're practicing, but we never really cover songs live. We write all of our own stuff and so far, we think people are liking it.

What are your thoughts on the York music scene? It's not the most lively place, but we're hoping to change that. We're starting to run out of places to play. We don't want to play the same places over and over again. There needs to be some more venues. We'd like to play at a variety of different places.

Are there any local artists you like? We like Hollywood! & Vegas, but we're open to playing with all other groups.

Do you guys have a best memory? I guess it would have to be our Club 19 show on Jan. 11. We had a good crowd with good energy. Everything went really well. There were no technical difficulties.

If you could run the music industry for a day, what would you do? If I was one of the head honchos, I would get out and hear bands. There are a lot of good bands out there that go unrecognized and have no way to really get their music out. I would help (groups) out with that.

Are you going to watch the Grammys? (Laughs) No. I don't really pay attention to that stuff.

What's coming up for you guys in the future? Right now, we're in the process of writing our first full-length album. We have seven songs finished and two more to go. Hopefully, (it will) come out this summer. We're tying to find a good studio. We're kind of bouncing around right now. We're actually going up to Harrisburg to record (our last) songs.

- ERIN McCRACKEN, FLIPSIDE STAFF