Anchors

Anchors is a band born and bred in the Midwest... Specifically Indiana… More specifically northwest Indiana. Close enough to taste the city life of Chicago, but far enough away to feel the weight of the consistent boredom the Midwest has to offer. What you do with that boredom is what defines you here. We decided to make music -- the kind of music that we would want to listen to. In 2008 David “Mavis” Black started writing on his own under the moniker Anchors. He had been in few bands before this, but none seemed to stick around. For the next few years, David wrote and recorded two EP’s on his own -- Feathers and Peacock -- using a cast of rotating players for live performances, though David was still doing most things on his own. By 2011, the lineup had pretty well solidified with the inclusion of Austin Caldwell on drums, and CJ “Siege” Morse on bass. They played songs from Feathers and Peacock with this lineup until the inclusion of long time acquaintance Bradley “Bradical” Briggs in August of 2012. As the story goes, Bradley knew he would be leaving his former band, and set about trying to convince David that Anchors needed two bass players (the two bands had played together on several occasions). Everything seemed to be in line for the best double bass band in history when, at the first rehearsal, CJ arrived with a guitar. He has been a thorn in Bradley’s side ever since. After a few months with this line up, Austin left, and was replaced by DJ Field, who had been in the same band with Bradley before Anchors. They also added a third guitar player, Matt Buist. During the next year, the band would write its first songs as a complete unit, as well as rewriting songs from the previous EP’s. With these songs, Anchors released their first full length record "The Fleet" in December of 2013. Immediately after the record release show, DJ announced that he was leaving the band to pursue finishing his own record, though he had a perfect replacement in mind in his long time friend Jason “Jbone” Summerhill. After a few meetings and a few beers with Jason, he arrived at his first rehearsal and could play the entirety of The Fleet; a feat in itself as DJ, the actual drummer on the record, couldn’t play it front to back from memory. Shortly thereafter, Matt Buist left the band. During this period, Anchors went through a lengthy time of rediscovery, playing with instrumentation and structure. Coming out of this time, the band began formulating their next record "Save the Empire." Some of us have families, all of us have careers, but none of us can give up music. Anchors can usually be found in their Valparaiso studio, fending off their Midwestern boredom by writing, rehearsing, drinking and occasionally dusting the cobwebs off of a Nintendo 64. An indie/showgaze esque band from Valparaiso, IN