This semester I will write a bi-weekly column on local music happenings. Whether it’s a local band profile or a concert review, the main focus will be the music being made right here in our fair city.The first band is one which has been receiving a lot of national attention lately, a band called Giant.
The band formed not long after twin brothers Zac and Isaac Jones moved to Greensboro from their small-town farm community of Mt. Pleasant, North Carolina. At the ages of 13, the two took up skateboarding and began listening to the highly influential and political-hardcore band Earth Crisis. Their friends and others in the community did not seem to know how to respond to such ideas.
“Everything in a small town is amplified,” Zac said. “If you didn’t do exactly what everyone did, you were outcast. It was our rebellion.”
The process of discovering a sense of self was not easy, and the two cite each other as the essential step in the process of consciousness-raising. When they moved to Greensboro, they began playing music with bassist Kyle Whisenant and guitarist Derrick Jones, and from there they never looked back.
Each band member maintains a vegan diet as well as a drug-and-alcohol-free lifestyle.
“(This) serves as our vehicles to becoming personally accountable, as a gateway that opened up our eyes to the struggles in the world around us,” Isaac said.
For their new, second album, a follow up to a five-song, 52-minute crusher entitled “Song,” the band wanted to address growing older and aging.
“We’ve always struggled with getting older,” Isaac said. “There’s so much beauty to being young, there’s so much simplicity to it.”
The band debuted five new songs during a show at the Green Bean on Jan. 19. The songs will be featured on the album entitled “Telomeres,” which as of now has no release date. Their songs are slow and trance-inducing, the sound huge in scope, volume, melody and sheer beauty, calling to mind the influence of bands such as Isis, Cult Of Luna or Neurosis, and even neo-classical artists like Kronos Quartet and Erik Satie. The massive crowd that came out for the show reflected the health and variety of the Greensboro music scene.
At first glance, the small-town feel of Greensboro seems like a strange fit for a band that has such a serious and professional approach to their music – they practice six times a week. However, there appears to be no place else they’d rather be.
“We love Greensboro to death,” Zac said. “If anything, the city is even too big. A place like New York City is our personal hell. There is such a rich, awesome history here, incredible bands, and you can get anywhere on your bike.”
They do not plan to quit making music anytime soon, and in fact, they just signed a deal with The End Records for four more albums.
“Giant is really cathartic for us,” Isaac said. “It’s about trying to tackle moods and stories rather than having any kind of style. Sure, we are thousands of dollars in debt, but those 30-45 minutes where we get to play in front of people make it totally worthwhile.