Earthsuit

Earthsuit

Earthsuit was a short-lived yet influential New Orleans-based Contemporary Christian Music band in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Earthsuit consisted of guitarist Dave Rumsey, keyboardist/vocalist Paul Meany, bassist Roy Mitchell, drummer David "Hutch" Hutchison, and vocalist Adam LaClave. Additional musicians included Adam "Admo" Wirdzek and Darren King, who both filled in on drums after Hutch left the group.

Biography

Earthsuit began as a collaboration between founders Paul Meany and Adam LaClave who began performing together at Café Joel, a coffeehouse on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. With the help of benefactors Donny and Reba Rambo, the two released a self-titled EP in 1997 (also sometimes referred to as the Headless Clown EP). The disc featured an early version of "One Time" as well as a portion of a rare live performance where the band covers Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" with re-written lyrics.

Guitarist Dave Rumsey, who played guitar and bass on several songs on the EP, and bassist Roy Mitchell eventually joined the band officially. The group, still in need of a drummer, was referred by a friend to David Hutchison who auditioned and immediately clicked with the band to round out their fivesome. The official lineup of the band recorded together for the first time on their second EP entitled Noise for Your Eyes. Noise included a new remix of "One Time", and the original version of signature oddity "Whitehorse". While performing at a festival in summer 1999, the band caught the attention of major label Sparrow Records who signed the group and released their debut album Kaleidoscope Superior in 2000.

Though Kaleidoscope turned out to be Earthsuit's only commercial release, the 10-track album managed to gain the band quite a buzz among eclectic music aficionados and the core of what remains today to be a loyal fanbase. A little more than a year after the release of Kaleidoscope Superior, the band was dropped from Sparrow Records. It is unclear exactly how this happened. Various comments from the band members indicate that the drop may have been at least partially desired by the band, who were not pleased with Sparrow's narrow marketing scheme. Sparrow marketed Kaleidoscope Superior primarily to the Christian audience. The bands that have spun off of Earthsuit have chosen to begin their careers in the general market, although this is partially due to the bands' different lyrical styles, which are more spiritually ambiguous than Earthsuit's.

Earthsuit seemed to have genuinely appreciated music, and created music with an original compositional and arrangement style. They drew from rapcore (they often used a melodic chorus/rap verse pattern), funk, New Orleans Jazz, and sampling. Reggae is an obvious influence from a percussive rhythmical approach, as well from the vocal style. This unique blend was virtually nonexistent elsewhere. Songs like "One Time" and "Osmosis Land" did invite some comparisons to 311 with their reggae/rap/rock focus, but most listeners found such comparisons to be inadequate.

The break-up

The band broke up after constant touring through 2001. As far as anybody knows, this breakup was mainly for musical reasons; according to Paul Meany in a post on the old Earthsuit message board, he and Adam LaClave were having trouble writing songs that combined their two writing styles into the Earthsuit sound. Thus, the band split up to devote more time to their side projects already-in-progress. Mitchell moved back to Texas to pursue school full-time. Rumsey married an Australian girl and is currently living in Louisiana, USA.

As a toast to their enduring fans, the band released a final CD in 2003, entitled The Rise of Modern Simulation. Only 1,000 copies of the independent release were printed. This final collection featured five original studio songs and 11 bonus tracks including a live remix of the Kaleidoscope Superior track "Against the Grain", practice sessions of concert material such as a Kraftwerk medley including "Said The Sun To The Shine", and a cover of Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime". It also features several concert videos available as enhanced content for the computer.

Mute Math

Shortly after Earthsuit's break up, Paul Meany began working with former-Earthsuit drummer Darren King in a production team they called "the Digitals". The name later changed to "Math". While under this moniker, Math produced for Christian music stalwart TobyMac on his single "J-Train (Math Remix)" also featuring Gospel luminary Kirk Franklin. Soon after, the band recruited guitarist Greg Hill and changed their official name to Mute Math (due to conflicts with another band using the "Math" moniker).

To accommodate the new recordings, Paul Meany, along with producer Tedd T started his own independent label Teleprompt Records. The first release was an EP titled Reset in September 2004 featuring the single "Control". Earthsuit alumnus Roy Mitchell joined the new venture in 2005 and Mute Math undertook an intensive tour schedule. During this time, the band built a formidable fanbase on MySpace documenting each show with video blogs. Teleprompt later signed a distribution deal directly with Warner Bros. Records and released a full-length self-titled album on September 26, 2006.

Macrosick & Club Of The Sons

Adam LaClave also formed two new bands Macrosick and Club Of The Sons. To date, Macrosick has only released only an independent CD titled demodisk, before the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005 forced the band members to go on hiatus. LaClave then turned his attentions to, along with Macrosick bassist Jonathan Allen, a new band called Club of the Sons. Though several new songs have appeared on their official MySpace page, physical pressings of them have been limited to keep expectations high for a proper release. In December 2005, they band began taking pre-orders for a full album, but feeling they had jumped the gun, they offered partial refunds and a 5-track CD of rough tracks. A different 6-track CD including new versions of previously released songs was sold exclusively at shows when the band toured with Mute Math in Fall 2006. They released an EP called The Roughs in the spring of 2007. According to their myspace, in the fall of 2008 they will be releasing another EP entitled Young Quanta.

Message

Earthsuit, as a Christian band, tried to communicate a Christian message to their audience. Their lyrics often contained complicated metaphors, which made them interesting from an artistic point of view. Kaleidoscope Superior, their only official album, is the prime example of this lyrical style; The Rise of Modern Simulation had lyrics that were more ambiguous, not unlike those of Meany and LaClave's side projects. Interestingly, some of the EP versions of the songs on Kaleidoscope Superior are also a bit more vague. Some wonder if this has anything to do with Sparrow Records' involvement in the album, but it just as easily could have been the band's decision. Certainly EP songs like "Whitehorse" were quite obviously Christian-themed.

Discography

• Earthsuit (aka The Headless Clown EP) (RMR Records, 1997)
• Noise for Your Eyes (GenCap Music, 1998)
• Kaleidoscope Superior (Sparrow Records, 2000)
• The Rise of Modern Simulation (2003)

Trivia

• Earthsuit's music video for "One Time" was in rotation on MTV's network for diverse and alternative types of music MTV2, then called simply M2.
• Earthsuit's music was heard on MTV/World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s Tough Enough. A brief instrumental portion of "Said the Sun to the Shine" was heard during episode #3, "Triple H Makes An Impact", which first aired July 5, 2001.
• Earthsuit had one official video for the song "One Time". It was filmed at the Nashville airport and featured Adam's dog Charlie. It is #7 on TVU's 50 Best Videos of All Time list.
• They are also to be heard in the movie Extreme Days.
• The advance promotional version of Kaleidoscope Superior (with a blue CD as opposed to the pink retail version) has the original version of a guitar riff in "Osmosis Land" that is flipped backwards in its retail version.

External links

• Earthsuit, Mute Math, Club of the Sons, & Macrosick forum