Roadside Graves

Roadside Graves hail from the small town of Metuchen, NJ, though today they are scattered about in places ranging from Seville, Spain to Point Pleasant, NJ to Providence, RI. The band looks something like this these days: vocalist and 2nd grade teacher John Gleason; drummer and expert conversationalist Colin Ryan; jet-setter/toy collector/guitarist Rich Zilg; cranky multi-instrumentalist and Shel Silverstein impersonator Jeremy Benson; master-gardener and bassist Dave “David” Jones; virtuoso Genesis-obsessed talkative keyboarder John Piatkowski; and most recently, guitarist/ “Space Committee” member (rumored name for the Bowie fandom) Renee Maskin. Their first two albums were home recorded (on the good old Roland VS1880) in dingy basements and were self-released in 2001 and 2002 when the guys were young-ish. In 2007, Brooklyn-based boutique label Kill Buffalo Records gave them a shot and released their second full-length album No One Will Know Where You've Been, the modest success of which allowed the band to play for a small but dedicated fan base around the country: half-filled (at best) clubs in Milwaukee, Chicago, LA, SF, Seattle, etc.; a jam-packed barn in Maquoketa, IA; a tattoo shop basement in Longview, TX; a falafel joint in Moscow, ID. The band even found themselves on some dream-bills at big festivals like Pickathon in Portland and the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks. Career highlights accumulate. Some of their songs were on the short-lived FX show “Lights Out,” which gave the show “Jersey-authenticity” and gave the band some money to record more music. After extensive touring, the Graves signed to the LA-based label Autumn Tone Records, which released the 18-song war epic My Son's Home in 2009. In 2010, Autumn Tone re-released If Shacking Up Is All You Want to Do with some bonus tracks and a new EP recorded in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains called You Won't Be Happy with Me. Their first and only music video is released, which became inexplicably popular in Brazil. More touring, weirder and weirder games in the van to pass time, and the passing time all the while having its way with the guys and leaving everyone older and longer in the tooth. An awkward interview at SXSW with John Norris. A song in the closing credits of the movie “Sleepwalk With Me.” Babies and jobs and moving and all manner of life changes to celebrate and mourn. Producer, friend, and good-looking guy Daniel Schlett remains at the helm of the recording process; Paul Gold masters it all in the cutest little studio imaginable. A concept album: We Can Take Care of Ourselves, based on the S.E. Hinton novel The Outsiders and recorded by Schlett at The Bunker in Brooklyn, comes out in 2012 on vinyl only. Bars open and close, bookers move on, your fans grow older alongside you. Ups and downs, “strikes and gutters.” The band’s manager Dane Sundseth gets a real job working with Edward Sharpe, but remains by the band’s side anyway. Loyalty. Faith. Dedication. Longing. Love. All night drives to Birmingham to play The Bottletree. A well-paying show at an Italian Festival in north Jersey where the other band was a Frank Sinatra impersonator. A 90s themed festival with the B-52s and The Gin Blossoms. Funny and odd stuff. “How’s the band going? You still do that? Any gigs coming up? You guys get paid?” More tours, more local shows, more writing, more love, more rehearsing, creativity always under threat but unflagging. Constant rejuvenation and renewal. And finally, a new record is born at new studio and with a new label: the album Acne/Ears is recorded and engineered by Robert Lombardo in his Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio and released by NJ label Don Giovanni Records on September 4th, 2015. Renee joins the band! Always more to be excited about. Our new record, Acne/Ears, is out now!