Professional teenagers

Admittedly, this isn’t the best time for a band to be embarking on its first tour ever, what with gas prices steadily climbing past $5 per gallon and into “an arm, leg, firstborn son and sacrificial virgin” territory. But for the guys in the Audiophiles, there really isn’t a better time to hit the road than right now. For one thing, it’s their summer vacation: three-fourths of the group, whose mean age is 17, are currently between their junior and senior years of high school. And secondly, their drummer — the one member who recently graduated — is leaving for college on the East Coast in the fall. So it is a do or die moment for these young NorCal power-poppers, failing economy be damned.   

“We have $400 and a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” says guitarist Jeremy Lyon about their preparation for the upcoming trek. He appears to be only half-joking. Of course, that’s not much of a budget — and depending on what kind of vehicle they’re planning on traveling in, barely enough to make it from their Bay Area homebase to Zoey’s Café in Ventura, where they are performing July 18 — and an all-PB&J diet is likely to lead to some form of dementia after a while. As already stated, however, for Lyon and his bandmates, the risk is worth it. “You can only play so many gigs in San Francisco.”

Indeed, since forming two years ago, the Audiophiles have practically exhausted their options locally. On the surface, this might seem ridiculous: San Francisco is nothing if not a live band’s paradise, with a seemingly endless number of clubs to perform at. Remember, though: These dudes are under 21. According to them, aside from big-time theaters such as the Warfield and the Fillmore, there are only a handful of all-ages venues in the city to play. (Some bars will allow them to perform, if they spend the time before their set sequestered in some sort of small No Drink Zone.) Thus, until they hit the legal age of consumption, if the group wants to continue to grow and improve as a unit, they must branch out, even if it bankrupts them.

Because this isn’t a hobby or adolescent interest — the band passed that point a while ago. Lyon and singer-guitarist Greg Fleischut met on their first day at Lick-Wilmerding High School, where they and a third freshman developed a radio show initially intended to be a fake newscast. (“The broadcast signal was really weak. It didn’t make it across campus,” Lyon says.) At some point, Fleischut, who had been in bands in middle school, was asked to perform at a show his friend was putting on. “He asked if I had a band, and I lied and said I did,” Fleischut says. He recruited Jacob Blumberg to back him up on drums and Lyon to sing and play guitar, while Fleischut would work a synthesizer. Soon, the radio show developed into a platform for their jam sessions; the anonymous third host eventually left the program.

Fleischut admits that, initially, the band was more concerned with being “weird” than good. Not surprisingly, then, that first gig was met with a less-than-encouraging response.

“The show went pretty bad. They cut the set short,” he says. “We asked if they wanted one more song, and [the crowd] said, ‘No.’ ”

Still, the musicians realized they had chemistry, and started to take things more seriously. They ditched the synthesizer and “proposed” to Zak Mandel-Romann, a classmate and bassist who danced onstage with them at that truncated coming-out party. They decided being “good” was a bit better than simply being “weird,” and started writing songs with the pop hooks of the Strokes and Blur. Lyon relinquished his singing duties to Fleischut because, Lyon says, his voice was “something I wanted to hear more of.” And their lyrics switched from jokey, vaguely misogynist love songs (“We like women,” Lyon clarifies) to more legitimate concepts, although Fleischut admits he considers himself “someone good with words.”

The more “professional” approach appears to be working: While their first official club gig drew only 50 people to a nearly 300- capacity venue, they almost sold out a similar sized building a year later. It’s a learning process, obviously, and the next big lesson awaits them as they leave their comfort zone for the first time.

“As teenagers, it’s hard to be perceived as not unprofessional,” Fleischut says. “We’re trying to become more professional. We want to get somewhere with this.”    

The Audiophiles
w/ the
Northstar Session
July 18, 8 p.m.
at Zoey’s Café
451 E. Main St., Ventura, 652-1137
www.myspace.com/theaudiophilescali