From the Principia Pilot October 13, 2006:
Last Saturday, the pub was transformed into a blues club. Playing to a full house was a new blues band, Briars Road.
The band's members include freshman Will Buchanan on guitar and vocals, sophomore Mark Asher on keyboard, sophomore Jeff Bailey on bass, and sophomore James Arnott on drums. Each musician's unique talent comes together to form a group with a style never before seen at Principia.
Buchanan and Bailey, who are childhood friends, formed Briars Road as a jazz trio in Maryland three years ago. Buchanan continued the band in MD when Bailey came to Principia last year, and the two started up the band together again this year. After a long search for a drummer, they found Arnott. Asher joined the scene last and was "the voice we'd been looking for," Buchanan said.
Briars Road combines a bit of jazz, funk, rock, and blues together in its style, but still manages to "take the musical richness and complexity of blues and present it to our generation in a way that's appealing," said Buchanan. Bailey noted that "the interplay between the band members is greater than the sum of its parts."
Buchanan, Bailey, and Asher all have extensive musical backgrounds. Buchanan picked up the guitar when he was 14 after eight years of classical piano and several years of playing the trombone. He is now the first guitarist in the Principia jazz band. Bailey has played the trumpet for 10 years, started playing the guitar the same year as Buchanan (he was 15), added bass the next year, and piano last year. Bailey has played in a number of other bands previously seen on campus like Silversmith and Little Tortilla Boys. Asher has been playing the piano since he was five, specializing in jazz piano from middle school on. While Arnott does not have quite as much experience playing the drums, he has dabbled in the guitar, trombone, and piano, and what he lacks in experience he is making up in strides in receptivity and commitment, say the other group members.
Focus and talent are two qualities each of the band members has said that this band possesses and has made the group successful in their beginning stages. Each has also mentioned the musically superior nature of their style, blues. Blues centers around an uncluttered sound, each musician distinctly being heard. “Blues is truly authentic American music. It is inherent in lots of our known music, like rock and pop,†said Buchanan.
Blues is a genre that is not well known today, and Briars Road hopes to “further this American movement [of music] and pay homage to our culture,†states Buchanan. While blues may be foreign to most here, “hopefully listeners will not just discover a new band, but a new genre,†said Bailey. “If we play well, people will realize how remarkable it is,†said Arnott.
