Somewhere in the small but musically fertile college town of Athens, Ga., the three members of Five Eight are getting ready to run through some of their tunes. They don't rehearse a whole hell of a lot, but figured they might as well try to get a practice in before they head out West for a string of dates with some other long-running local-hero Athens outfit."I didn't think we needed even one. I'd rather just throw songs at these guys," says guitarist/singer Mike Mantione, laughing. "That's the reality of our shows. Can you hear [drummer Mike] Rizzi beating the shit out of something in the other room? That's because nothing's changed, except we're opening for R.E.M. next week."
Yes, that R.E.M. After more than 15 years of shoestring van tours, club-stage mastery, personal and professional catastrophe, promising college-airplay chart numbers, and unimpeachable rock 'n' roll songs, Five Eight is officially an up-and-comer. Again. With the release of their self-titled sixth full-length, they find themselves once more on the receiving end of the kind of attention reserved for acts poised at the edge of breakout success. The new single, "I'm Still Around," is garnering airplay not just from college radio, but on large-market Clear Channel stations as well. Retail behemoth Best Buy is including Five Eight in its super-low-price CD sales program.
"I certainly haven't seen this much interest in the band in 10 years, at least," Mantione says.
And, of course, they're opening for fucking R.E.M.
"We had some leverage with 'em, and we pretty much put it to 'em this time. I was like, 'you guys owe me big time,'" jokes Mantione. "No, wait, you are NOT writing that down. Actually, they called [our booking agent], and it was like a complete shock. I had to take the guitar out of pawn. I was stealing gasoline to drive down to the pawn shop."
This latest flirtation with a seriously heightened profile is sweeter than previous encounters, particularly for Mantione and bassist Dan Horowitz, who started the band with former drummer Patrick "Tigger" Ferguson back in '89. They've been on labels big (Velvel, the imprint that collapsed shortly after being founded by former CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff) and small (North Carolina-based emo purveyor Deep Elm, among others) over the years. But these days, Five Eight is a truly independent entity — they funded and released the new disc without any record-company backing.
"The reason we're independent right now is because the independent booking agents and press people and distributors are the ones who get fired up about Five Eight," Mantione reasons. "At a major, you might have an A&R person who's in love with the band, and a president who doesn't think it's his cup of tea. But when you're putting the pieces together yourself, the people who don't want to work with you, don't, and the people who do, do."
It also helps that Five Eight is a name that music fans have been hearing in conjunction with words like "best," "live," "band," and "world" for more than a decade, and that Five Eight is the group's best studio effort to date. The disc combines the barely restrained emotion and taut, eccentric, punky songwriting of early-years Five Eight releases with the studio savvy of more recent outings. The result is a brief, crackling yet polished collection of songs that's just long enough to let listeners know that while the band can hang with the majors, Five Eight definitely has its own inimitable take on rock 'n' roll.
"It zips through, and you're done. It's only 44 minutes of music," Mantione agrees. "It goes back to the way they used to make albums."
Following the R.E.M. dates, Five Eight will embark on another of the self-financed indie-scene club and theater tours that have largely defined the band's career. That side of things, the touring side, doesn't seem to have changed much. It's the other side, the business side, where they've paradoxically made headway by abandoning the traditional industry process and going it alone.
Or perhaps "abandoning" isn't exactly the right word — Mantione, Horowitz and Rizzi haven't made a decision to turn their collective back on record labels for good. They're just trying something different, and it seems to be working.
"I'd like to see a label come and help us finance some of the stuff we're trying to do now, like break the band on radio, but we're doing that independently — it can be done, and it's really all about the music," Mantione says. "Right now, there's a lot of freedom in the industry, a lot more than what I would've thought. Hell, we're getting our break right now. If nothing happens, it's not because we didn't get a break."
scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2004.
