J. Scott Kunkel
Led by Shane Quella (second from left), the Madison band will play Live on King Street on July 15.
Shane Quella likes to refer to his musical life as a weird journey, and when you hear him describe it, you realize the guitarist and looper-in-chief for Madison’s Neens isn’t wrong. The 31-year-old has spent 16 years toying around with what he’s come to call “experimental dream goth pop,” often as a one-man show.
But now the payoff is at hand. After a strong opening performance for El Ten Eleven at the Majestic last February, Neens has been tapped to open for Lewis Del Mar at Live on King Street. The July 15 date is the band’s biggest gig yet and is likely to attract plenty of new fans.
Neens’ foundational sound is built around looping guitars and synthesized drum riffs, but we’re not just talking Shoegaze Central here — there’s some narrative depth to songs like “DD,” a Quella-penned song that the band’s bassist, Kyle Turner, describes as a “waking dream.”
“We didn’t grow up in this sugar-coated, white-boy life,” says Quella, a Racine native. “We all have our deep little secrets, and the songs are not peppy songs. There’s dark meaning.”
He and his bandmates cop quickly to a love of all things ’80s — they’re fans of doom-and-gloom icons like Joy Division and the Cure — and songs like “Look Like a Fool” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a John Hughes soundtrack. In fact, the song’s video is a shot-for-shot re-creation of the final scene of Pretty in Pink, with Quella in the Andrew McCarthy role.
Quella composed most of the band’s current catalogue during the three years he abandoned Madison for Arizona, where he spent a lot of time alone in his bedroom, playing with Casio-based sound effects and looping riffs through multiple cassette recorders. After Quella returned to Madison two years ago, his sound caught the ears of guitarist/drummer Braden Huffman and Turner, who’s also from Racine. The full band has since come together, with each band member influencing the sound.
“The older songs continue to grow and change,” says Huffman. “They’re these evolving things. We approach each arrangement a little differently.”
The first cassette pressing — there’s that ’80s vibe again — of the band’s 2015 Factory Sounds EP sold out on Bandcamp, and the band just added a drummer to its lineup, the appropriately named Travis Drumm, another Racine native. “With the beat machine, we were limited,” says Quella. “Especially with the loops we’re doing.”
It’s a busy summer for Neens. On July 23, they’ll front an afterparty at High Noon Saloon to help celebrate the release of a new album from fellow Madison music scenesters Seasaw. After that, they’re hoping to devote more time to new material, including some songs by Huffman and Turner. Quella’s angling for a couple of polished singles that lead to a label and an eventual full-length album.
The King Street gig, though? Unleash the new drummer and set the rest of Neens free.
“I don’t want to be this band that plays behind a computer,” says Quella. “That doesn’t seem raw to me. I want to see some sweat. I want to see someone screw up. It’s what builds character.”
