Dave Chamberlain

Who's the funkiest band in Chicago?

It's a band that cannot be pigeonholed. It's Watchers, and just try to box them in. Indie-funk? Indie-rock with funktastic moveability? Slapdash, pedal-to-the-metal, sexually pulsating rhythm-method post-punk? The answer lies somewhere between them all, and simultaneously, nowhere near any of them.

To see Watchers on stage is to see one of Chicago's most energetic bands on stage, the complete package so to speak. There's a drummer (Ted Danyluk), a percussionist (Jaime Levinson), guitar and bass (Ethan D'Ercole and Chris Kralik), and lead singer Michael Guarrine. There are even two backup singers (Ty Jiles and Nicole Irby), both of whom come from an extensive gospel-singing background.

Despite the rhythmic chaos that happens onstage, the focal point of the effort is Guarrine, who contorts, sways and outright gets down in the limelight. "It's gone through my career as playing," he says, "that whatever the show price is, eight dollars or ten dollars I always double it, like 'let's give 'em a twenty-dollar show.' My energy is my way of saying I'm just as excited to be here as you are."

"You bring the show to the crowd," adds guitarist D'Ercole, "which is a very important part of what we do."

"That's the way I am onstage," continues Guarrine. "It's a lot of love, but I guess it could be perceived as antagonistic too, in the sense that like, 'OK Chicago, here we are.' My thing is, I never ask anyone to move. I think that's the lamest possible thing. If you want to move, fine. If you don't, fine. But I'm gonna be moving, and if you're so inclined, then please. You're just gonna have more fun. Just drop what you're doing and enjoy yourself, lose your shit for forty minutes. I mean, you paid the money, so you might as well."

But of course, a band cannot live on the live show alone--eventually a record needs to be made. That record, "To the Rooftops" (Gern Blandsten), Watchers' debut, runs deep with so many tangible and intangible influences that it only makes the band harder to pin down. As such, it mirrors the band's own collective personal tastes. "We're really influenced by a lot of the Chicago soul bands, like The Impressions, Syl Johnson, Baby Huey. Then all the punk influences. But Ethan and Jaime have all this Brazilian and Latin stuff that they're into. And Ethan has an enormous knowledge of hardcore reggae stuff, like Aston Ellis, things like that."

Obviously, no band just wants to imitate what's come before. "It's fun because when you're in a band," explains Guarrine, "you can kind of look at all your influences, and then really ask what made this great, what made it so original when they were doing it. And then trying to take your own original spin on the history that's come before."

Adds D'Ercole, "There's so much musical history. It's a very tough musical generation to be in a band, because you've got so many years of great music, so many different types. So everybody naturally will pick one little era or corner and just stay there. But it's equally as dangerous to pull from everything as it is to pull from one little area. So the best thing is to find what you're good at doing and then just hone it in from there."

Somehow, the Watchers did just that. Throughout "To the Rooftops," different rhythms and meters leap out from every corner of the globe, bass digs deep into the handbook of dub, and various pieces and parts of rock and soul blend into a tonic that's not only palatable, but downright addictive. Then there are the backup singers, harmonizing and counter-harmonizing, adding the proverbial last piece of the puzzle. "One day we were just talking," recalls Guarrine, "and we thought it would be cool to flesh out some of our songs--because some of our songs were just like screaming for something else--and we were like, 'yeah, let's get some soul singers.'"

"When they first came into practice," continues D'Ercole, "they wrote their own parts and I was like, 'these songs are now complete.' They even brought in their own kick-ass dance steps."

"To the Rooftops" fulfills expectations for a young band better than could be hoped--perhaps the result of the custom mixing board used to record, the same one that Sly Stone used for Sly and the Family Stone's "Small Talk."

"After Sly got huge" says Guarrine, "he built a studio and got this guy to build this board," interjects D'Ercole, "And it looks like the control panel to the Battlestar Galactica--there's all these crazy things, the knobs go backwards, it's nuts. And apparently when Bill [Skibbe, who recorded the record] was cleaning up that machine, he found lots of marijuana, cocaine, stuff like that. Then he knew for sure it was Sly's board."

Despite "To the Rooftops" having just been released, Watchers have already garnered mentioned in Alternative Press and the Village Voice, though neither had trouble boxing the band into a corner. "We've been sort of penned as this dance band sort of thing," notes Guarrine. "And our answer to that is: when did everyone stop dancing?"

Watchers hold an official record-release party for "To the Rooftops," May 2 at the Metro, 3730 North Clark, (773)549-0203. The Eternals, Apes, and Party of Helicopters open.

(2003-04-30)

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