Preview: Statehood @ the Black Cat

Rewind a bit to 2005. Songwriter Clark Sabine, formerly of local act The Motorcycle Wars, writes and records an album's worth of solo material using an Akai MPC 4000. After playing a few solo gigs, he recruits former Dismemberment Plan drummer Joe Easley to join him for some shows. As luck would have it, Axelson soon returns from a brief sojourn overseas, just in time to join the duo for a show at the Black Cat. Though Axelson initially saw his role in the new band as a temporary arrangement, he soon found himself feeling a bit more attached than he had anticipated.

"Once Joe and I got more involved in changing out the parts that were there initially, it started feeling more like a band than a project," he said. Soon, ex-Vehicle Birth guitarist Leigh Thompson was on board and the four-piece Statehood was complete.

Given the band's lineup, which prominently features the Dismemberment Plan's propulsive rhythm section, and it's choice of producer — you guessed it, former D-Plan guitarist Jason Caddell — it's not surprising that Statehood's debut LP, Lies and Rhetoric, sounds a bit, well...familiar. That's certainly not a bad thing, however, and the band seems more than prepared for the inevitable comparisons.

"It’s not really a concern for us--in so many ways those things are out of our hands. And at the end of the day, you can't change where you're from," Axelson said. "It was the same thing with Maritime. People were yelling out for us to play 'Make Me a Chevy' and those old Promise Ring songs. But it went away eventually."

The members' pasts aside, Statehood has plenty of things going for them aside from an impressive pedigree. Much like their name, the band's sound is firmly rooted in the city we call home. Jagged guitars buzz like wasps and whine like ambulance sirens on Lies and Rhetoric, often recalling Jawbox, Fugazi and the post-hardcore sound that once dominated the D.C. scene. Meanwhile, Axelson and Easley hold down the low end, working overtime to build a solid foundation for all of those guitars. Sabine's vocals tie it all together — a little bit raspy, a little bit smooth, he glides easily over the bouncy compositions. Unlike with most of the Dismemberment Plan's albums, Lies and Rhetoric rarely tempers the uptempo songs with slower numbers. Rather, the band keeps things in overdrive for the majority of the album's running time.

"There was a lot of coffee at practice - maybe that's why it's so fast," Axelson said. "It was my first year as an AP English teacher and Joe was finishing up his degree in aerospace engineering. Everyone kind of needed the extra jolt."

The band's name and the title of their album seem to have a similarly incidental explanation as well.

"The name, while we all support D.C. statehood, wasn't supposed to be this big statement or anything," Axelson said. "And the album title, well, it was just kind of fitting being in D.C. There's a lot of rhetoric here, obviously. And, depending on your views of this administration, a lot of lies as well."

Though the band members surely have enough industry contacts between them to score an audition or two, they've decided to keep things DIY for the time being, releasing Lies and Rhetoric themselves, with a little distribution help from Dischord and No Idea. Axelson, having already been down the road of looking for recording contracts plenty of times before, is skeptical that a label could offer the band much more than they can provide for themselves at this point, especially given the dominant role that online sales now play. What's more, Statehood's current situation takes him back to a simpler time.

"It's kind of fun, actually. It reminds me of the early days of the D-Plan when we'd be screening t-shirts after practice," he said. "We'd have one guy screening, one guy hanging up the shirts to dry and one guy ordering pizzas."

For the time being, the band hopes to tour regionally (an upcoming East Coast tour will see them playing shows with both Travis Morrison Hellfighters and Maritime), though the focus is definitely on D.C., according to Axelson.

Of course, things could change and the band seems open to the possibility of getting more serious, if the record starts to take off. Speaking of change--what happens if D.C. gets statehood? Would the band change their name to publicize another worthy cause?

"I don't think we're gonna get it, which is unfortunate. That last vote was close but not close enough," Axelson said. "But yeah, we'd keep the name, we'd keep being Statehood. People probably won't forget-it'll probably be a sore spot for a long time."

Statehood's CD release show is tomorrow night at the Black Cat's Backstage with the Aquarium and Gary B & the Notions. $8, 9:00pm.

Photo by David Holloway, courtesy of Statehood