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Local pop-punk band Aadia likes to keep it simple. Heavy drums, jangling, fuzzy guitar and minimal bass lines. But the simplicity of the band’s style belies its power – catchy pop riffs, raucously melodic songs and a rowdy enough vibe to keep even love songs miles away from doe-eyed emo.
“It’s an honest and modest sound,” bassist and vocalist Ryan Graber says. “That’s the way our personal relationships are, and that’s what’s kept us together for so long. We like to keep things simple. We don’t want to overdo things.”
Officially, the band – Graber, guitarist and vocalist Sam Miller and drummer Levi Gross – was formed four years ago, brought together by a dislike for the country music they heard in the small towns where they grew up.
“Avoiding country music,” Graber says. “That’s where we were coming from. We were the weird kids.”
Although a fairly new staple of the original music scene, Aadia has already started its own label, Clamp Down Records.
Since then, bands such as The (expletive) Panthers and Zachary Cain & the Trailer Park Boys have joined up. This kind of independent thinking is just part of the old-school punk ethos, Graber says.
“We’ve always done our own thing,” he says. “We’ve always been a DIY band, so we said, ‘Screw it, let’s start our own label.’ ”
Lyrically, the band keeps to the basics. No politics, no songs about saving whales. For the most part, the songs are based on everyday experiences, Graber says.
“We write about anything and everything,” he says. “Heartache, heartbreak, work. Whatever comes from the heart. We all live average-Joe lives – working 9 to 5, working weekends – so that’s what we write about.”
Recently, the band recorded its first full-length album, “St. Mary!” Over the course of six months, the trio hammered out two or three songs at a time. A labor of love, you could call it.
“It was dragged out over time,” Graber says. “But this is the kind of music we like, it fits our personalities.”
