Features
They’ve Got The Touch (or We Stream The Album Electric)
Electric Touch will close out the month with a handful of Texas appearances: Texas A&M University in College Station (August 27), a show at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q and an in-store at Waterloo Records in Austin (August 28-29) and an in-store at Cactus Music and an evening gig at Warehouse Live in Houston (August 30).
The band jumps on The Fratellis tour September 1 at House of Blues in Cleveland and sticks with it through early October, with the exception of a September 13 appearance at Monolith Festival near Denver and a September 27 detour to the Austin City Limits Music Festival.Other stops include Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia (September 4), 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis (September 10), Warfield Theatre in San Francisco (September 17), Exit/In in Nashville (September 24), The Loft at Center Stage in Atlanta (September 30) and Orpheum Theatre in Boston (October 3).
Tickets for The Fratellis/The Airborne Toxic Event/Electric Touch shows are available at Ticketmaster.com.
Electric Touch’s eponymous debut arrives August 26.
Frontman Shane Lawlor recently talked to Pollstar about how the group came together, the Electric Touch work ethic and having two members in the band with a (not-so) secret weapon.
Lawlor initially came to the States just to visit, but soon found himself hooked.
“I came here about three years ago as a musician and I fell in love with a girl, which is why I ended up spending so much time in Austin,” Lawlor told Pollstar.
Before long, a chance meeting with guitarist Christopher Messina, who he’d already met through a mutual friend, gave him another incentive to stay.
“We bumped into each other in a coffee shop and we talked about the groups we were in at the time and how things weren’t really going the way we wanted them to go.
“We started hanging out and before long, the guitars came out and we started jamming.”
The duo imported Messina’s twin brother Louis from Houston to play drums and Ross Dubois from Corpus Christi to play bass and things really took off.
“From the first demos that we did, people were interested and the tapes got passed around. Before we knew it, we were signed and the album was done. It’s just been a whirlwind really.”
The band delivered a buzz-building set at SXSW last spring and has spent much of the year on the road in clubs, but really hit its groove on the summer festival circuit, where Lawlor said audience response has been terrific.
“We give it everything we’ve got on the stage and really lay it out there. We’re really honest about the music and just go for it and have a good time. It seems that people vibe off of that and get involved with us even though they don’t know the songs.
“Lollapalooza blew our minds. It was the largest crowd we’ve ever played and we felt a real connection. It would be nice to make a habit of that.”
Although the quartet is based near Austin, fans won’t find them hanging out on 6th Street, home of the city’s thriving music scene.
“We were pretty isolated. We live and work in a house 30 minutes outside the city and we generally isolate ourselves there with a big record collection and our imaginations. There’s too much work to do to go to the bars.”
And if Electric Touch’s work ethic isn’t enough to get them where they want to go, there’s also that secret weapon. Christopher and Louis Messina are the sons of legendary concert promoter Louis Messina, whose company Pace Concerts was a fixture on the national concert scene for more than two decades, booking and managing outdoor amphitheatres and producing hundreds of concerts a year.
Lawlor said having Messina on board as manager and mentor definitely has its advantages.
“Being able to work with someone like Louis, who’s such an amazing person with years and years of experience and who has so many lessons we can learn – when we listen – has had a fantastic positive impact on the group since day one. The standards that we set for ourselves are extremely high and that’s exactly how we like it.”
Fans can expect to see a lot of Electric Touch in the coming months, since the band has no plans to slow down anytime soon. It’s all part of the plan to build something that lasts.
“We want to have some longevity in our career and that’s why it’s so important to play live as much as we can. We don’t want to be a flash in the pan. As long as we can keep busy and keep working and introducing new people to the group, we’re doing something right. We’ll just keep working hard and whatever comes, we’ll welcome it.”