ACCELERATTI/NEW LABELS

“Break away from the Black shadow of the labels”

Andrew Olson

Reader Weekly

After hearing about a local band from Gomez of the Black Labels I found it a nice idea to give them a few plugs recently. They had played a house party, Homegrown, and opened for bands like The Alrights at the Tap Room last Saturday (May 27th). The band’s front man, Chad Lyons, wanted to clarify a few things for the readers.

Chad recently talked of how he became associated with The Black Labels writing, “I have been a close friend and supporter of the Black Labels for a few years. Some of the members are my best friends. I never missed a show, or a chance to help them haul gear. Through this time I had expressed interest in forming a band of my own to play country-fried hot rod rock. Even though until last December I had NEVER sang/played in a band before.” Even Gomez from the Black Labels said last March, “we have a pretty big shadow to escape from the standpoint of a new band, and we aren't exactly riding on the shirttails of the Labels.….. Chad Lyons, our singer/frontman, he's the cat to fill you in on his perspective of what he wants for the Acceleratii. It's his project that we're working with, not the other way around.”

Chad continued in his story to me of Acceleratti saying, “Gomez was very excited about (starting this new band) and was a great choice for a lead guitarist. He was also very eager due to the fact that he was playing mostly rhythm parts at the time (with BL). So we sat on it for a while and went searching for a drummer, bass player and rhythm guitarist. It seemed like months and months went by with no luck. Then I finally just asked Ben (Marsen) if he would like to play bass. He was hesitant at first mostly because we did not want to recreate the black labels, especially with Norby playing rhythm. But I did not have many close contacts with musicians on the scene and with my inexperience, people were unsure of how it would go jumping on board with a rookie. So I convinced these guys that we would be able to break away from the Black shadow of the labels.”

This was when the Acceleratti was born. Why the clarification? Well it is tough to start a new band with many members of another band backing you up. Chris lamented about this saying, “this (clarification) has nothing to do with any sort of ego on my part, but it's "my" band, not a side project or something someone else started and found me for a front guy. Ya dig? Maybe I just sound like a self important ass, but that is not what I'm trying to get across. I would be nothing without those guys.... Bottom line is that it (The Acceleratti) was it's own thing. A group of friends/musicians going in another direction to add to the quilt work of Duluth's music scene. But not something I was added to. You ever hear the Acceleratii before they had a singer? Nope:) Again I hope you can tell were I'm coming from and do not think I'm some sort of ego maniac.”