Tommy Plural (The Plurals)
SPB: What do you remember about the first Plurals live show?
Tommy: The Plurals -- from the beginning, and to this day, Tommy, Nich, and Hattie -- started playing together when we were all still in high school, largely jamming on Pixies covers in the spring of 2004. We cycled through a lot of joke band names and were using "The Plurals" largely to sort of make fun of the common trend of "The" band names, as was the style of the time (The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes, The Vines, et al). The point of us becoming a "real" band happened gradually and didn't really coalesce until closer to 2007, but what we typically feel was our "first show" was in the unassuming confines of a house party double wide trailer "venue" in the Michigan countryside that was mostly referred to as "Dan's." The titular Dan was a guy in his mid-20s that owned the trailer and, in retrospect, was kind of creepily encouraging high schoolers to party at his place while hosting shows primarily for local hardcore bands. "Hardcore" at this time and place was the stuff of metalcore breakdowns, pig squeal vocals, and dangerous levels of testosterone. It was on the cusp of becoming the mid-2000s eyeliner, diagonal haircut, MySpace-based "scene" thing but wasn't quite there yet. If you were underage in the middle of Michigan in 2004, basically the only options for all ages shows were populated by these bands so while The Plurals were pretty far outside of this scene it was where we ended up performing in the early days. We had invited friends over to hang out at our band practices and we had played for Hattie's family as we practiced at her house, but the invitation to play in Dan's living room in August of 2004 was the first time we were going to be playing a set on a bill with other bands, and possibly for unfriendly strangers. This was also probably when we committed to the name "The Plurals" for the handmade flyer and line of text on someone's Geocities website.
Summertime parties in the Midwest countryside are usually pretty pleasant, so even though we were maybe vaguely afraid of some of these older kids that wanted to slam dance to bands that were, at best, trying to sound like Dillinger Escape Plan without the required musicianship, there were plenty of comfortable corners by the cars outside to keep to ourselves. Besides, this was small town Michigan so all sorts of folks came out to these shows as there was little competition for activities. So, finally, we played a handful of garage rock originals, some Pixies songs, a noisy cover of the Beatles "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey" (which got a hearty cheer from this barefoot guy that I recognized as having graduated with my brothers a few years before) and a completely unrehearsed cover of Nirvana's "Aneurysm" that someone called out as a request. We all knew how to play the song but had never once played it together, but as teenagers slammed into each other a few feet in front of us in the living room of a double wide trailer, we went for it with the kind of naive abandon that's easy to conjure as a new, young band that's excited about the music we had started to make. The microphone barely stayed in place, alternating between the floor and shrieking with feedback, but the song sounded just like it was supposed to.
We left before the cops inevitably came; I'm pretty sure I had to work at 6 in the morning the next day at my dad's grocery store and never went to sleep. While it would be unrealistic to say that this show, essentially a small town excuse to get drunk, solidified our band, we all had felt energy we never had before and this feeling is probably what keeps us playing together nearly 17 years later. I'd say we should maybe see if we can play in Dan's living room again, but I'm pretty sure that guy's in jail.
