Northbrooke

Band: Northbrooke

Members: Dean Miller, vocals; Brett Sheppard, guitar and backing vocals; Justin Harvey, bass and backing vocals; Justin Buckley, drums

Who we talked to: Miller and Sheppard

How did you guys get together? Sheppard: I knew the drummer, and me and him started playing and rocking out, and then we were looking for a singer and a bass player. We brought along (Miller), and he brought Harvey, the bass player. It pretty much escalated from there. (That all happened) about six months ago.

Where did the name come from?

Miller: We actually got it from a street sign on the way to band practice.

Sheppard: We practice in my garage. We just added an "e" to the end because there was already a band with the name Northbrook.

Can you describe your sound and style?

Sheppard: It's like a mixture of different stuff. There's like pop/punk, and there's alternative and rock.

What are your influences?

Sheppard: My (influences) are Blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves.

Miller: I really just have, like, personal influences. I really don't take too much from bands I listen to. A lot of (inspiration) comes from past relationships or hard times I've been through, like, family issues and things like that.

Are you guys all original?

Sheppard: We throw in covers, like maybe two (per show). But most of the stuff we play at shows are originals.

Is there a certain place that you guys like to play?

Miller: We've had I think, like, two or three shows in York County. We've played Baltimore, and we've played in Westminster (Md.).

Sheppard: I think we all really like to play Club 19 up in York. They get big crowds.

Like any local groups?

Sheppard: One band we've played with last time at Club 19 probably, like, two weeks ago was Starting Over. They're from the York area.

Is there anything on the radio right now that you guys aren't feeling?

Sheppard: It's kind of weird because I listen to different music than (Miller) does. Each person listens to a different kind of music.

Miller: I usually listen to pop/punk, country, rap (and) a lot of hard-core, like, metal stuff, too.

Sheppard: I pretty much just listen to pop/punk and pop.

How do you feel about the York music scene?

Miller: The York scene is decent. It's not one of the stronger music scenes that I've seen because I used to live in Baltimore that has a real big music scene. York has about four or five venues, and we haven't even contacted some yet. There's a lot of talented bands that come out of York, so it's looking pretty promising.

What is coming up for you guys in the future?

Miller: Probably in the next month, we're going into the studio to record a four- or five-song EP. We're looking to send it out to different record labels to see what we can do with it.

Sheppard: This is something we do for fun, but we take it very seriously. We'd also like to possibly make it a career.

What's your favorite part of playing out?

Sheppard: My favorite thing is probably getting the crowd into it. Most of the time, the crowd is into (our music), but sometimes you get crowds that are a little iffy and they're not sure if they like it or not.

Miller: It's always hard to write your own stuff to put it out there and hope people like it. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. It's what you're giving them and you know you put the best you could into it.

- ERIN McCRACKEN, FLIPSIDE STAFF