Out of the ashes of Silver Lake band Pine Marten, whom, after releasing one CD, disbanded in 2003, multi-instrumentalist Brian Thornell decided to start writing songs for a new project.
Having been embedded in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake music scene since 1998 as a part of the core that made up the loose collection of bands known as The Ship Collective (which contained bands such as Earlimart, Sea Wolf, Irving, Let’s Go Sailing and Silversun Pickups), as well being a founding member and drummer of Earlimart and a touring keyboardist for The Radar Bros., Brian was already an integral member of L.A.’s underground indie music community. He also had years of touring under his belt. He toured along side bands such as Modest Mouse, The Breeders and The Black Heart Procession throughout the states as well as over seas.
Having also been a partner in a recording studio, also called The Ship, he recorded many local, up and coming bands. Some of the bands he worked with include Silversun Pickups, The Breeders, Let's Go Sailing and Rex Aquarium. He honed his recording and producing chops to a point where he could record himself with satisfying results.
As a sideman, he’d co-written or collaborated on many songs in past groups, however, he’d never written songs of his own. He’d never considered himself a songwriter or a singer, however, during the next few years he began working more and more on his own compositions. Early efforts proved to be under whelming and many hours where spent writing, rewriting and studying the great songs of the past. His past music experience came in handy as he recorded and performed all the instruments and handled all the vocal duties for the project.
Eventually, things started sounding pretty good, and after deciding on a name for the project, Wrong Way Driver, he debuted it on Myspace in late 2006. Soon, people started listening. Eventually local musicians and bands began inquiring if he’d be interested in playing shows with them. This led to the live incarnation of the band, fellow musician Athena Legrand was enlisted to play bass and drummer Mark Giorgionne signed on. The band surfaced with a short set in the early evening of July 19, 2007 in Los Angeles. Since then, there have been more shows, a keyboardist, Kristen Cottrell has been added and drummer Eric Morgan has replaced Giorgionne.
So far, 2008 has seen them open up for The Radar Bros. during their residency at The Echo in LA, a limited edition 4 song EP has been self released and a video was filmed for the song “Firefly†with director Chris Cafferty. Now with well over 30 songs written and recorded for the project, the goals for the band are to play out live as much as possible and find an outlet to release the songs. Look out for a debut full length sometime in the future.
To be continued…
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NEW VIDEO For A Marvelous Contraption!!! Please note that this is not the video we've been working on for "Firefly" with Chris Cafferty (which is going to be way radder) but it's just something I made up on my new computer -BTa href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmlsaWtlLmNvbS
9hcnRpc3QvV3JvbmcrV2F5K0RyaXZlci9hZGQ="All songs written by Brian Thornell (ASCAP)
© 2008
