Great Magnet

So what is the Great Magnet? Well, according to frontman Adam Sullivan, “I like to call it Hard Pop…self-coined and maybe kinda pretentious I know. But what I really mean is, no matter how heavy the music gets, those pop hooks are always there…keeping things catchy and inherently listenable.”

Indeed. And in fact the music does have some range: from face-melting uptempo rockers to ballads so delicate they could wet-nurse a newborn baby panda. But no matter how hairy (or hairless) the music becomes, it is never esoteric. The hooks are always there.

The project, in title at least, is an offshoot of Adam’s commercial recording studio endeavor, Great Magnet Recording. It was there that he wrote, recorded, and mixed the thing, first in it’s older Petaluma, CA location and then finalized in his new Santa Rosa facility. “The name is pulled from a Hunter S. Thompson quote that I gravitated to not only because I love his work but because magnetism has so much to do with the business of recording and playing music. Electromagnets make your microphones, guitar pickups, speakers and untold other gizmos fire up and do their thing, so I just thought it was a good name”.

When it came time to lay down the tracks and form a live band, there was never any question of who would be laying down the bass: longtime friend and über-bassist Nathan Alfaro (whom also lends his pipes to backing vocals) was the presumed and unquestioned choice no matter whom you asked. Nate’s style is unapologetically ferocious and solid, with little time wasted on frilly licks or prog-dandy tones. Never will you hear a pop, a slap, or a sparkly high-end transient plink…his 110% low-end, pushed-to-the-breakup point tone is the perfect compliment to Adam’s penchant for vintage amps that also like to lose their shit a little bit when you turn them up good and loud.

The drums on Snake and Pepper Sea were performed stylishly by Paul Bertolino…another longtime friend of both parties, and an amazing musician in his own rights. But due to Paul’s far-flung locale and rigorous touring schedule as drummer for Bay Area stalwarts Persephone’s Bees, another drummer had to be found as the album was finished and playing live came to the fore of each man’s cranium…

Enter heavy-hitter Jeff Piehl. Jeff’s diverse and deeply-ingrained skillz on the skins have been utilized by an obscenely long list of bands and other musical projects throughout the Bay Area over the last decade-and-a-half, and as luck would have it the last two projects he worked on were done alongside Mr. Alfaro. Nate and Jeff became fast friends and the most rigorous two man mutual admiration society you could ever imagine and with good reason. So as those aforementioned projects dissolved and Nate joined back up with Adam to recreate his studio tracks in a live setting, Jeff’s presence on the scene was a must, and the boys lobbied heavily for his involvement, which was luckily won.

As the band slouches into the second third of 2010 and begins live touring for the first time ever, we bid farewell to Nathan’s son Connor Alfaro who has been making us all smiles with his textural palette of rhythmic riffage. He’s moving somewhere way cooler than here, and probably forfeiting old guys with guts in exchange for hot chicks with loose morals. God speed young man. Don’t forget to wash. Anything that needs it.

Enter the amazing Mr. Jason Reed, formerly of Dream Machine, who is already raising the musical bar in ways that we could not have fathomed. Be it lead or rhythm, fingerstyle, slide or flatpicked, Jason is The Man. We’re all totally losing our minds and shit around here over it.

All signs point towards an exuberant future of rocking-the-fuck-out and spreading the gospel to all who are willing to listen. Come one, come all…