After The Scars
Band members, instruments and day jobs: Don Nichols, guitar and vocals, works at Simmons Pet Foods in Siloam Springs. Steve Pruitt, drums and vocals, works at an RV dealership in Lowell. Chris Villines, bass, works at Guitar Center in Fayetteville.
Band born: February 1, 2008.
Other current or previous musical affiliations: We (Chris and Steve) record bands at our home studio, Black Cat Studios. We’ve all been in a number of rock, punk, and even acoustic bands over the years.
Type of music: Alternative/Rock/Melodic/Punk
Originals or covers: All original
Sounds like: A butterfly with a rocket launcher. Heavy distortion, melodic choruses, strong bridges, unconventional tunings and drumming.
Songwriter’s muse: Life experiences, love, hate, deep inner emotions, conviction, the condition of the world, spirituality, beauty
Influences: Old school punk, ‘90s metal and grunge, and a slice of literally everything in between, from Tori Amos, Primus and Dream Theatre to Muse, The Pixies, Nirvana and NOFX, an insanely diverse range of musical influence.
Accomplishments: I’m not sure whether you would call these accomplishments or not, but in a four month period of time we have written 16 original songs, recorded a three song demo in our home studio, designed and printed artwork for said demo, duplicated the demo and began self-distributing it, built a real web site as well as a MySpace, set up a Garage Band site, set up a tune core site, set up a promo fm online download store, set up an EPK (electronic press kit) through promo fm, completed two professional photo shoots—one live at George’s, designed and printed killer t-shirts, and contacted dozens of venues regionally and booked 17 shows, eight of which we’ve played already, meanwhile acquiring a full PA system and just about all the gear we need to get the job done.
What kind of crowd do you draw: Our fans are pretty diverse in age and style which is how we like it. Any where from 13 to 40 somethings come to our shows, from punks to business owners. Diversity makes the world a more interesting place.
When and where do you practice: We practice at Steve’s home studio in Rogers. We call it the Swiss Alps (first because it’s upstairs, second because Sasquatch has been frequently sighted there). Don our guitar player is 6’8″ tall with a size 17 shoe, so we call him Sasquqtch.
Any albums: Our EP “You’re Not Alone” was released in April 2008. Winter 2008 we’ll put out our first full-length album.
Total number of tattoos and piercings: About eight piercings and seven or eight tattoos. The funny thing is, they all belong to Chris our bass player.
Back stage ritual: We haven’t quite developed what you would call a ritual yet, but we do like to talk crap and crack each other up, followed up with a rock-n-roll pep talk.
Plans: Rock hard and skillfully, treat people right, do business with integrity and create unstoppable momentum.
Goals: We all believe that we were born to do this, so positioning ourselves to be fulltime artists is certainly at the top. Creating a buzz and thirst for art of original, local music is something we are very passionate about as well.
New Projects: Right now we’re just gearing up for our full length CD this winter.
Upcoming shows and tours: July 19, Sublime Coffee House in Tulsa; July 23,24 Froggy’s in Fayetteville: Aug. 8,9 Billiard Palace in Fayetteville. We’re representing Arkansas bands in the KABOOM four-state battle of the bands September in Caney, Kansas.
Web site: www.afterthescars.com –
MySpace site: www.myspace.com/afterthescarsrocks
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