It wasn’t fate, it wasn’t destiny, it wasn’t the will of some electro god (though sometimes it sounds like it); it’s all in the name: Electric Friends.
Matthew Bowers, Jeff Turner and Nick DeNitto joined forces last November to make beautiful music together. This Friday the trio will play with The Midnight Ace at the Music Farm for what they hope will be their biggest show yet.
Just four months and many shows ago, things clicked for the guys when they opened for King Britt at Shine.
“We had practiced a few times together and it wasn’t really happening but we decided to play that night and it was just some ridiculous chemistry,” says DeNitto, the C of C graduate who moonlights as Machete.
In fact each of the friends still perform on their own from time to time, with Matt DJing as CMNDer [think Mac button] and Jeff as JeffET, but they certainly know where their strengths lie.
“The original idea was to form a record label and we still will, but playing together…we realized we had some things in common, similar tastes for sure,” says Bowers, C of C senior.
Attendees on Friday will get to see just that when each plays some old and some new.
“Expect some stuff you’ll recognize but expect stuff no one’s heard yet…we’re each doing individual sets then combining like Voltron so you can see how it comes together,” says DeNitto.
Just how it comes together…well that’s a little less planned. Three young men about town don’t always have time to rehearse together, but frankly, they don’t always need to.
“It’s kind of a jazz thing, we all know how to count and we all trust each other, so we know when to come in beat-wise…we have rehearsed things that fall in with improvised things, it’s very cool, very jazzy,” says DeNitto.
Since that first show, Electric Friends has been playing numerous bass-blasting, foot-stomping shows around Charleston, navigating the careful path between having fun and creating a fanbase.
“Less and less we’re playing the obvious crowd pleasers but our fans trust us, they like us because they know what to expect with our name,” says DeNitto.
What can future friends of the Friends expect this Friday? Besides some seamless electro and house with video-mixing by Benny C, expect Electric Friends to sweat more and dance harder than you’ll ever try, but please no requests.
“Here’s the deal,” says Turner, “I will never play the [expletive] Black Eyed Peas, there’s just some [expletive] I won’t do.”