The Carolines don’t have a “special message” or a political agenda, and the band will be the first to admit it.
“We’re not trying to prove anything,” rhythm guitar player and songwriter Nate Purscelley said. “We just literally want to make fun music that we like to listen to.”
Singer and keyboardist Aaron
Trueb agreed.
“People can go to a show and have fun,” he said. “The music isn’t depressing. Our purpose is just to be creative and make good music.”
The five-member Portland-based group will play WOW Hall with the Gin Blossoms and Eugene’s own Glass Hearts on Friday. The other band members are lead guitarist Nathan Trueb, bassist Matt Lenhart, and drummer Jared Abraham.
Trueb and Purscelley said they have never met the Gin Blossoms, but they are both excited about the chance to perform with the band, whose album, “New Miserable Experience” featured such hits as 1992’s “Hey Jealousy” and “Allison Road.”
“I’ve always actually been a fan of theirs,” Purscelley said. “This is a huge deal — to play with a band who’s had the history that they’ve had… It’s one thing to play with a really popular band; it’s another to play with one you really like.”
The Carolines have been playing music together for three years, save Lenhart, who officially joined the band just a week ago.
“Basically, we are all friends,” 26-year-old Purscelley said. “We are all into music, and we just started hooking up and writing songs together.”
The Carolines released their first album, “Don’t Believe What You Hear” in 2001, and Purscelley described the sound as “vintage rock.” The band is now in the pre-production phase of their second album, which they plan to release early this summer.
“I think the sound will be similar,” 23-year-old Trueb said. “We definitely aren’t changing our sound, but I hope that our songwriting has developed a bit. I’m more excited about the songs we’re writing now.”
In the meantime, The Carolines said they are also shopping around for a supportive independent label and striving to build a broad fan base close to home.
“I think that our big thing is to work it slow, keep it relatively local — develop fewer markets really well.”
Trueb added that the band will play a mixture of old and new material at
Friday’s performance.
The rockers said they have heady goals for the future, but according to Trueb and Purscelley, their most notable accomplishments so far have nothing to do with Billboard charts or album credits.
“One of my biggest achievements is that we all like each other,” Purscelley said. “I’ve never met a band that gets along as well as we do — it’s monumental.”
Trueb said his best reward is “just to be able to write songs, to have some sort of venue to let people hear them and have people say ‘that’s one of my favorite songs.’ It’s something that we did, that somehow, you know, entertained or spoke to someone else.”
Friday’s show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $14 at the WOW Hall box office. For additional ticket outlets, call 687-2746. If you do “believe what you hear,” The Carolines said they expect a sell-out crowd.