When Point Park University students Max Kovalchuk and Chris Cichra started composing new material for their folk-pop group Paper Politicians last summer, the duo realized a freshly penned guitar part blatantly deviated from the genre. Instead of scrapping the chords, they scrapped the band.
"We wanted to do something different," Kovalchuk said. "We wanted to be able to move around a little more on stage and get a little more rock with it."
The misfit rock song became the catalyst for Nevada Color, a rock band formed last July by recycling Kovalchuk and Cichra's existing musical chemistry and adding fellow Point Park students Quinn Wirth and Adam Valen to the mix, as well as self-proclaimed school-of-hard-knocks student Jeremy Westhead. Just a few weeks into its existence, the band, influenced by Vampire Weekend and Young the Giant, booked its first show. It didn't even have a name yet, let alone enough songs to play a full set.
"It pushed us to write more music," Valen says of the band's debut at the Smiling Moose, where they opened for The Company We Keep.
Many rehearsals and writing sessions later, Nevada Color can add performing with Go Radio and The Dangerous Summer to its list of accomplishments, as well as landing a gig with The Apache Relay booked for March 9 at Stage AE. The members plan to release Sharkey Lewis, a six-song EP, in early March, which will showcase the band's goal to "have fun," Kovalchuk said.
According to Westhead, "When you're finished listening to it, you're going to be in a great mood."
More on Nevada Color: www.facebook.com/NevadaColorMusic
