A ‘Stronghold' of songs
As a member of the rock n' roll band Stronghold in Siam, there's always something to do. Whether it's practicing, writing, recording, laughing or playing "Super Smash Brothers," they keep active.
"Spontaneous defines our band," drummer and promotional manager Nick Matthews, said about the practice style and creative process of the Boxford and Topsfield-based group.
Sometimes it is as simple as lead guitarist Pete Hunt fiddling with a certain melody or rhythm and realizing something clicks.
"I'm gonna make a song out this," Hunt said, describing the turn of events that results in the creation of song. "It just happens like that."
Appearing as clash of chaos and order, singer Andrew Gregory says they take the process very seriously, just like sports teams.
"Stronghold's taken on a sports mentality," said Gregory, who also plays acoustic guitar, also speaking to how the band is comfortable accepting criticism from each other, with Matthews giving an example by telling bassist Barry Grove to get a hair cut.
The band's name is derived from a common theme they noticed while playing the strategic board game "Risk," where players attempt to conquer the world by taking control of territories.
Matthews said that they realized if one player had control or a stronghold in a territory called Siam, then they were almost impossible to defeat, hence the name Stronghold in Siam.<span> </span>
Stronghold started out as "psychedelic rock," or "space rock," but since then realized that none of their songs fell within that category, now describing their music as a healthy mix of pop rock, classic rock, pop punk and country.
"It's kind of cool to mold all this together," Gregory said.
Stronghold in Siam has been diving into the Boston club scene, playing venues such as Avalon, The Paradise and Harper's Ferry.
One of the band's favorite shows came when they visited the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vt., where they invited one of the audience members, heavily enjoying what the brewery had to offer, to join in, feeding him a microphone.
"Some random guy with a harmonica came up," Matthews said, adding that the man didn't overplay and did a relatively good job.
After entering Emergenza, a battle of the bands in Boston, while still at Masconomet, they were called the top unsigned high school band in Boston, something that motivated the band to continue on.
"That's when we started building steam," rhythm guitarist Adam Fisher said.
After the members of Stronghold went to college, they spread out all over, from Ithaca, N.Y., to Amherst, from Boston to Tennessee.
However, a strong enough connection was made in their high school years that everybody worked hard to continue to develop their talents so that when they met during summer and winter breaks, they fit back in together.
"I thought it was pretty amazing," Gregory said about how they all played after literally no practice for a five- or six-month period.
"The chemistry was still there," Matthews said.
During summer breaks, the best friends hung out with each most of the week.
"Just about every day we do something music-oriented," Matthews said, adding if they're not writing music, they're practicing existing songs or playing in the studio with recording or mixing.
Although they admit music is occasionally put on hold and the band will sink into a couple hundred rounds of "Super Smash Brothers" on the Nintendo 64 video game console.
Stronghold in Siam is playing in Topsfield on Aug. 5 in the Town Common from 4 to 6 p.m. as a part of the summer concert series. They hope to finish recording their second full-length CD by winter 2008. Visit their Web site at <u><span style="color: blue;">www.strongholdinsiam.com.</span></u>