INTERVIEW WITH ATHENAEUM by Jonathan D. Wright

Okay, the name is pronounced ATH-A-NEE-UM -- an obscure one to be sure. But the music is very user friendly and has already been played on the radio. We recently talked with two members of Athenaeum at their label Atlantic Records. Read on to get to know the band with the strange name.

Highwire Daze: Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in the band, and a little something about yourself -- it can be either personal or funny.

Mark Kano: Most likely it won't be funny if it's coming from me, but I'm Mark Kano and I sing and play guitar for Athenaeum. I met these guys over the past seven years individually one by one. I met Nic (Brown -- drummer) at first when we were playing through a karoake machine and I just sort of built on from there. After high school dances and pep rallies, we started playing real shows, and that's what led us into this.

Grey Brewster: I'm Grey Brewster, and I play lead guitar and sing backing vocals. I came from a different town, I was in Charlotte. I went to college and met Mark my first semester through a friend who was a crazy freak. He thought the two of us should get together and play and I ended up meeting Alex (McKinney -- bass) and we went from there.

HD: How long did it take Athenaeum to get your first demo going and play these real shows?

Mark: I guess after three years after we joined. We had gone through two different bass players and two different guitar players. It was just friends, because we were taking it very lightly, just playing for fun. Then when we actually started writing songs, it just got to a point where we just thought we should put something down on tape. Everyone was in the band except for Grey then. We recorded a six song cassette, we made 300 copies of it and they sold out in three months. And that's when we found Grey and kind of worked towards making a CD.

HD: After the 300 sold, you started taking it more seriously?

Mark: We were taking it seriously in that we just wanted to put songs out and see what people thought, and have fun and play some local shows. And when we started having a fan base, we actually started talking to a guy who was helping us get shows -- and he thought it was a good idea if we put a lot of the songs down on CD and do a better version. So we went in during the Winter of 94, and that was released in the Summer of 95.

HD: (To Grey) So when you joined the band, you had to learn all this material. Did you find that interesting and were they letting you add to it at the time?

Grey: When you come into a situation like that, we have a lot more songs now than they did back then. But yeah, I came on and Mark and I played and got together several times before I actually saw the band play live. They were wanting to get out and play the shows. And I was new in town. I had done my own thing back in Charlotte and I had moved to Greensboro. I was looking for something I wanted to be a part of that was worth my while and they were focused and they had good songs. It was not too complicated -- you just see that and you go, "Yeah, that's a cool thing. I'd like to be a part of that."

HD: The new record was produced by Gavin MacKillop, who has produced many known acts including Toad The Wet Sprocket. How did you guys approach him and what was his actual role in the making of the record?

Mark: The reason that we like Gavin MacKillop is because of Toad The Wet Sprocket. We like the way the record sounded, we thought the songs were great and the arrangements were really good. He was really one of the first names we ever threw out to the label when we first started talking about getting a producer. We met him out here in LA when we were doing a showcase, went over to his house the next day, gave him a copy of the CD and some demos we had done, and he called back a couple of weeks later and said he'd love to do it. While we were in the studio, it was everything we thought it would be and a whole lot more in different ways. It was a huge growing experience for us, like learning how to tear apart a song and building it back up and seeing what happens. We'd spend three days working on a whole song instead of two hours, so it was a completely different experience for us.

HD: The new album is called Radiance. Where did you get the title from?

Mark: We use to live on a street in Greensboro, North Carolina which was named Radiance. And the name just seemed to come together at the last minute. We thought it was a great word -- it was a good time for us that we had -- we spent three years living in and out of the house, the whole band would stay there when we played shows in Greensboro. It was us saying we wanted to show the world what we were all about. It was a good word and it made sense and it was a part of our home town too, so that's why we chose it.

HD: Has it been your main dream to get on a major label?

Mark: It's the only big dream I've ever had. When I was around 19, I thought we might be able to do this and ever since then, that's all I've thought about. And I think everyone has been working towards this together.

In addition to their own web site, fans have began to post their own bulletin boards on Athenaeum. They are sure in the Spotlight these days -- it won't be long until everyone know how to pronounce their name -- and sing along to their beautiful, melancholy songs as well. The Web Address is HTTP://WWW.ATHENAEUM.NET so check it out.