In a booth at Smith’s Olde Bar, the guys of We Fly Standby debate which instrument is the most difficult to play in Rock Band (the drums, of course) with nearly as much energy as when they discuss their own musical evolution.
Twenty minutes later, while lounging in an alley behind the bar, the guys tell the story of their transformation from an Oxford College duo to an Emory-based quartet. The band, founded by singer/guitarist Charles Rhyner and drummer Marlon Rhine, picked up bassist Brandon Kitchel in 2006. As of Tuesday night, keyboardist Colin Baylor officially joined the band’s indie rock ranks.
“Prior to Colin, we had a small rotating door of people playing with us,” Rhyner explains. “We tried out some other people, but Colin fits like a glove.”
Tuesday’s show marked an anniversary of sorts for Baylor, who played his first gig with We Fly Standby at the same venue back in November. In what Rhine describes as the “most rock star entrance ever,” Baylor hopped off a plane, rushed to Smith’s and showed up just 20 minutes before their set. And then he realized he didn’t know all of the band’s songs.
“I had to ask Brandon how one of the songs went when we first played,” Baylor said. “I’m really excited because I’m going to be much better tonight.” He rocked every note this time around.
In addition to expanding its lineup, We Fly Standby has spent the past year rocking out in Kitchel’s self-made studio. The Tufts graduate and CDC employee admits to spending nearly every dime on new equipment and the rest of the guys aren’t arguing; in fact, the band has recorded so many fresh tracks that they rarely play anything from their old albums nowadays.
“We’ll be like, ‘Oh, I wonder what would happen if we recorded a 12-string track to this song,’ and we’ll say, ‘Put the guitar amp in the bathroom and see,’” Rhyner says. “It’s kind of spontaneous so it makes it fun.”
Although the group doesn’t intend to top the 70 shows they performed last year, the guys are far from loafing around during their free time. When Rhyner, Rhine and Baylor sing the alma mater for the last time this May, they hope to have more than just diplomas under their belts. The guys plan to release a second album sometime around graduation.
“We’re all definitely perfectionists in our own way, which is kind of nice,” Kitchel explains. “But the bad part about it is that it’s kind of making this latest album take a little bit longer than the other ones because we’ve experienced so much and we’re expecting so much more out of each other and out of ourselves.”
Thanks to Kitchel’s home studio, free international distribution via MySpace and a steady Atlanta fan base, the guys of We Fly Standby don’t look to be signed to a label anytime soon.
“Doing what we’re doing on our own, we have so much progress that we can make with creating our sound,” Rhyner says. “We’re just growing as musicians and having fun and getting to do all these things. We don’t need a record label so, like, forget about it.”
Rhine tosses his hoodie into the air and chimes in, “The goal isn’t International Tour 2009, you know?”
Their post-graduation plans may or may not include world musical domination, but right now the guys aren’t looking any further into the future than August. Rhine plans to pull a Christopher McCandless — sans death in the Alaskan wilderness — and spend his summer living out of a van with his best friend from high school. The trip is something he hopes will allow him to bring a new perspective to his music.
As for the rest of the guys, Kitchel and Baylor intend to keep up their day jobs and studio work in Atlanta, while Rhyner hopes to intern with Barsuk Records in Seattle.
Despite such diverse paths, it looks like all roads lead back to Atlanta for the guys of We Fly Standby. Each hopes to keep the band growing.
“Hopefully we’ll all come back here with a lot more creative juices from a lot of different experiences and we’ll put that all together again,” Kitchel explains.
Rhyner adds, “Obviously, returning to Atlanta is a nice possibility.” Although nothing is set in stone for the Emory rockers, they seem to like it that way.
“We’re kind of making it up as we go and having a helluva good time doing it,” Kitchel says.
— Franchesca Winters

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PO Box 121760
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