Stroke 9 Tickets

About Stroke 9

Stroke 9 is a San Francisco-based rock band whose career thus far has followed the indie-rock work ethic to the letter. They formed in high school, released two albums themselves, booked their own national tour, and eventually made so much noise that they got signed.

It's what comes next that will be really interesting: the band's Cherry/Universal debut album, Nasty Little Thoughts, is loaded with 3-to-4-minute harmony-loaded pop-rock songs which are so addictive that stardom seems like a foregone conclusion. The group is a tight and powerful rock band, but wisely never lets anything get in the way of melodies like the ones in "Little Black Backpack," "Letters" or "Washin' and Wonderin'." The album was co-produced by ex-Talking Heads keyboard whiz Jerry Harrison (Live, the Verve Pipe, Kenny Wayne Shepherd) and Rupert Hine (Duncan Sheik, Howard Jones, The Fixx), who gave the band a radio-ready sound without sacrificing any of the energy.

"The first thing with our music is always the song," Luke says. "In high school I was into a lot of English new wave - The Smiths, Love And Rockets, New Order - and then I had a big classic rock phase. I've just always been attracted to melodic music."

Yet what comes across as much as the band's irresistible melodicism is their almost preternatural chemistry, musical and otherwise, which stems from the fact that three out of the four band members have been best friends for a decade. They formed the band in high school - Marin Academy in San Rafael, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

Drummer Eric Stock came on board two years ago. "At first it was kind of weird coming into such a tightly-knit bunch of guys," says Eric, who joined the band shortly after an American tour with Modern English. "But, now I feel like I've know them all my life." "Yeah, we're together all day, every day and we're still best friends," John says. "People tell us that it really comes across when we're playing live."

This band was their high school senior project. "We had a class called 'Rock Band' that we made a six-song tape for at a local guy's studio, and that was our senior project. Yes, we got graded," Luke laughs. "I can't remember what we got - probably a 'See me after class'!" At the very least, it didn't prevent any of them from graduating. All four members went to different colleges, yet each summer they'd "fall back into the band" and recorded their self-released debut album, Boy Meets Girl, during the summer of '93.