Hoodless: Yes, You Can Stare at the Musicians

"Our lead guitar player grew up on a bus with something like 30 cats. Our bass player was the whitest man in the highlands of Kenya for a summer. Our rhythm guitarist has driven truck from one end if this country to the other. Our drummer has a baby and I once thought I was gonna play college football until I fell off a cliff on my mountain bike," says Twon, lead singer of the rock band Hoodless.

"We don't like describing our sound in musical terms, or comparing ourselves to others. That's for the critics and our fans to do for themselves," Twon says. "As a group, we've become more efficient with our riffs and melodies. Our sound has become more streamlined, so the power of the sound goes right from the ears to the soul."

The band has opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and had its "Don't Waste Your Time" video play on HBO, but Twon says they play directly for fans, not the industry. "What makes us feel special is when fans find meaning in the music that we didn't even know was there. Music is one of the most perfectly subjective forms of expression in this world: everyone experiences it differently. When we finally decide a musical idea is solid enough to give birth to as a song, we are relentless in making it as good as it can possibly be."

Outlandish requests are not in store for any members of the band - also including Finn, Paul Alan, B Lee and Carter - thanks to Twon's past employment experience notes. "While working at a posh Union Square hotel, I met a lot of people and helped many a rockstar drunkenly navigate their way to a hotel bed. At this job, I had an encounter with J.Lo. In her rider, (the set of rules a hotel/venue must follow to keep an artist happy,) one of the first lines said that no male employee shall look J. Lo in the eye. So I just stared at her any time she got within my field of vision because of the ridiculous nature of that request. She was so uncomfortable that my boss actually requested I take the rest of the day off."

HoodlessRocks.com

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