When Boston jam band Cosmic Dilemma changed its name to SeepeopleS in 2000, the group decided to make another important change as well.
“We really don’t jam at all anymore – all the parts are written out,” says SeepeopleS’ singer-songwriter-guitarist William Bradford. “In a jam band it’s hard to take music somewhere different every night. The reality is that once you hit the road you fall into playing the same things, and we reached a point where we wanted each song to be at every night. You know, ‘This is the way it should sound every night!'”
Bradford says that revelation was liberating for the group:
“Great bands that were completely exploratory, like Pink Floyd, at the end of the day you can pull out an acoustic guitar and the song still comes through and you say, ‘That’s a great song.’ The same with the Grateful Dead. At the very heart of why they were great were great songs, great lyrics and great arrangements. If you’re gonna make something that’s timeless, that’s what you’ve gotta put into music. There’s something to be said for a pure player who just lives and breathes notes, but for our situation, it definitely works better if we work it out beforehand.”
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Where Cosmic Dilemma started is when Bradford and drummer Tim Haney, who grew up in the same neighborhood and became friends since elementary school, joined forces with bass player Dan Ingenthron.
“Dan had been playing in an Aerosmith tribute band,” says Bradford. “He’s a great bass player, but he also looked a lot like the bass player from Aerosmith. We stole him away from Draw the Line.”
Ingerthron was happy to join a band playing original music. In 2002, the group released its first album, “For the Good of the Nation,” and followed late in the year with two of the original trio taking their leave.
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Taking the band’s combination of humor and unpredictable rock across the country has been an experience. The group is determined to build up a fan base all across the country, which entails performing in the same towns many times.
“It’s one big adventure,” says Bradford. “I can safely say no matter where we go in the country half of the people at the shows I consider friends,” he says. “They’re not even fans anymore to me. I know their names and they’re people who’ve put the band up or helped the band over the years. When you get to that point where you can maintain a friendship with people in a different town or even a different culture you feel like you get an interesting perspective in how people live. You can see the differences and similarities. It is an interesting way to experience the country and the culture. You have friendships with very different kinds of people.”
Touring brought Bradford to Asheville, N.C., where he now lives.
“Every time we would tour through I just wouldn’t want to leave,” he says. “Of course you end up spending most of the time on the road, so when I was living in the Northeast I was just paying the heating bills so my pipes wouldn’t freeze.”
