Band

Rewind to 1988. In a small rehearsal space in the run down Eddy Building in downtown Bloomington, Illinois, things are heating up as a band who call themselves “The Something Brothers” are running through their set for an upcoming show in front of what has become a rabid local following at “the Gallery”, a little dive bar in the neighboring college town of Normal. It won’t be long before this band of “brothers” - twin lead vocalists Scott Lee Wilson & Dean Carlson, guitarists Edwin Pierce & Tommy O’Donnell, drummer John Ganser and bassist Greg Pare - take their traveling circus on the road, out across the prairie, winning new converts in heartland college towns and big-city venues. Word travels fast and by 1990, with new bass player Clay Thompson joining the rhythm section, they’re holding down Saturday nights up in Chicago at Cabaret Metro, touring nonstop from New York City to Kansas City, Minneapolis to Key West and all points between, sharing bills with indie-rock luminaries of the day like Uncle Tupelo, Meat Puppets, Soul Asylum and Smashing Pumpkins.

The upward trajectory soon takes its all-too predictable turn. Major labels start sniffing around and a big-league producer even flies in, yet they all puzzle over how to package and monetize this unique stew of musical styles. “Is this an alt-country act, a metal band, a comedy act…?” asked one A&R man. This puzzle is never solved.

In the closing days of 1992, The SoBros pile into their broke-ass van after a show in Davenport, Iowa. The strain of all the years of gigging, poverty and record deals that fell through finally boils over, climaxing in a booze fueled fist fight on the shoulder of Interstate 74. They limp home for the last time.

Except for the recorded legacy of their six-year run (see Music on the main menu), it was over for our small-town heroes and all the “Boneheads” who loved them.

Fast forward to 2015 and, after a few one-off reunion shows in the late ‘90s and a gazillion offshoot bands and projects, the gravitational force of the SoBros’ unique chemistry proves too hard to resist and after a series of meetings the decision was made that the Brothers would finally, after all these years, reunite.

With Thompson’s relocation to Nashville years earlier, Pare was back in on bass while Carlson decided to opt out of the project. With the core of the original band reunited, matured, and with hatchets long since buried, the Something Brothers begin to write and record new material, culminating with a sold-out show at Bloomington’s Castle Theatre and the release of 2018’s much anticipated comeback album “Apollo”. The SoBros were back, and once again a force to be reckoned with.

Yet, as all good rock ‘n’ roll stories go, tensions within the brotherhood began to grow, leading to Pare being replaced by longtime friend of the band Ryan Nelson. The band, now revitalized with new blood, returned to the studio in 2020, spending that socially distant year feverishly writing and recording a monster of an album, releasing the critically acclaimed mind-bending 3-record behemoth "FLAK" in 2021.

The band quickly got back to work and have released the new power-packed album “Sharpen Up The Dynamite” to mess with your eardrums as we head into 2024.