There’s nowhere to park a car inside drummer Dylan Eggert’s parents’ garage when I get there on Sunday night to catch Haberdashers practice. The carpeted room is full of gear—acoustic and electric guitars, snares, two full drum kits, amps, pedals and microphone stands—plus ’60s-inspired decorations like classic rock posters and a neon-blue lava lamp.
With a control room already built into the garage, Eggert naturally claimed the spot as his studio, and he and his early twentysomething bandmates—Jacob DiMartino (vocals, guitar), Ryan Severin (guitar) and Jules Manning (bass)—have spent the past two years here, demoing, practicing and recording a self-titled EP. Eggert says his parents are used to it. “I basically took over the old house,” he says. “I had all my drums in the kitchen, then eventually I gutted out my bedroom and made that the practice space. I was just sleeping on the couch for years.”
As a bottle of Jameson gets passed around between jams and the guys make frequent trips to the Little Caesars pizza box stashed in the corner, the scene feels straight out of a high school kickback. But when Haberdashers really start to rip into the set, it’s impossible to miss each self-taught musician’s surprising technicality. From metal to alternative, Brit-rock and jazz, the collaborative songwriters’ spectrum of influences oddly works, rendering hard, Cream-meets-Arctic Monkeys riffs.
Still excited after their biggest show to date, opening for local mainstays Most Thieves and A Crowd of Small Adventures at the Bunkhouse, the guys sound stoked just to finally be getting paid gigs. And while Haberdashers is still a newish name on the scene, the group has some big aspirations, including recording a full-length at the end of the year and touring.
“I want to be the local rock ’n’ roll band that opens up for the big artists that come in,” Severin says. Eggert goes bigger. “I want to be the band that people open up for,” he says, only half-kidding.
Haberdashers With Rubedo, October 9, 10 p.m., free. Velveteen Rabbit, 702-685-9645.
