Alt-rockers the Alarmists were all set to make their Madison debut this weekend. They were billed to play at Café Montmartre with Blueheels for what promised to be a spirited Saturday night crowd. But they never made it.
After their Minneapolis show Friday night, the Alarmists were involved in a car accident outside a popular downtown Minneapolis venue the 7th St. Entry, which claimed the band's van and left a few members injured in its wake.
Drummer Derek Jackson sustained a nose injury and lead guitarist Ryan McMillan needed eight stitches for a wound on his hand, but everyone walked away alright.
We have good insurance,"" said the band's vocalist Eric Lovold. ""We actually just unloaded all of our equipment about an hour ago here and everything's fine.""
The five-piece outfit started in Minneapolis' vibrant rock scene years ago but just last year released their first full-length album The Ghost and the Hired Gun, a follow-up to 2006's A Detail of Soldiers.
As a University of Minnesota student, Lovold and company worked diligently to self-produce A Detail of Soldiers, an ethic they repeated on their latest, but this time the band built a studio in a St. Paul basement. ""We were able to do that [record] on a more sophisticated level than the EP,"" Lovold added.
The release of The Ghost and the Hired Gun earned the band a variety of accolades from the Twin Cities' media, but Lovold is quick to also cite the exposure they have received from Minneapolis/St. Paul public radio station The Current.
""Not a lot of bands have that opportunity on a national scale. Minneapolis and St. Paul are unique for that and it's really cool,"" Lovold said of the band's entrance into the station's regular rotation. ""That's really helpful for bands that are on our level.""
He added that they have received varying degrees of college radio play nationally but nothing like the play they received from The Current.
The same press is eager to fit the Alarmists into a genre describing their classic guitar sound as a brand of retro-rock, a term that sits just fine with Lovold.
""I think people say retro-rock because it's a classic breed of rock,"" Lovold said about the band's classic categorization. ""But if it means comparing us to bands that have been around for a long time, that's fine with us.""
However, he finds analogies to Brit rock acts like Oasis more confusing since 80 percent of the band was raised in the Twin Cities area.
But whether the media think they sound like Oasis or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Alarmists are making their presence known in the crowded Minneapolis underground.
After three years playing the city's best, the Alarmist are looking to Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago to expand their fan bases. Working around day jobs and limited budgets, Lovold says the band is being choosy about where they travel.
""We need to really decide where we want to go that's gonna help our fan base and get people to hear our music, while at the same time not going into debt.""
Their next dates are scheduled for Minnesota venues and they are planning a trip to Austin, Texas for the major South by Southwest festival. They hope to reschedule a Madison date for early March.
Lovold says the band is eager to branch out and build new fan bases.
""We know it's not going to happen over night,"" he said. ""You go out there and you develop fans and the next time you come back there's 35 people, and that's really cool. We've been having some of that and that's fun when you come back and see some familiar faces.""
True to their strenuous work ethic, the band has already begun work on their second full-length album, expected to be released later this year. The band plans to release two new tracks to eager fans in the coming weeks. The tracks - ""You're Right"" and, ironically enough, ""Car Crashes"" - will be available for download on the band's website soon.
