By Energetic, soft, electronic, witty and light-hearted, the band members of The Outline create an alternative twist to indie music through the album “You Smash It, We’ll Build Around It,” an adaptation of a John Lennon quotation.
The band signed on with independent record label Fearless Records in the summer of 2006. Fearless has released artists like At The Drive-In and Sugarcult.
The Outline is currently on national tour. The group has previously performed on the Vans Warped Tour, and has shared stages with bands such as Jack’s Mannequin, Panic! At The Disco, Ben Lee and the 5,6,7,8s.
My interview with the members was a little unsettling. These four were characters: Graham Fink (vocalist/guitarist), Austen Lee (guitarist/keyboardist), Max St. John (bassist/backup vocals) and Ryan Rabin (drummer/back-up vocals). The members really joked in a way to lighten up the mood as I spoke to them in their van in front of the local venue, the Chain Reaction, in Anaheim on the night before Thanksgiving.
The band explained the title of its new album in the interview with Fearless Records. “There was an anarchist publication that attacked John Lennon for not being a true revolutionary. They wrote back and forth…Lennon’s final postscript, attempting to justify his own methods, read, ‘you smash it, I’ll build around it.’ We latched on to the theme of constructive effort.”
“We were trying to make music that is interesting and that we’re proud of,” Fink said.
The Los Angeles-based members got together four years ago, while they were still in high school. The band worked to create its own sound with the musical influences from David Bowie and Led Zeppelin to Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails.
“We tried to combine as many styles of music as we could,” Fink said. “We just all love different kinds of music.”
“Shotgun” shows how the band directs its sound to lyrical significance. The song emphasizes the phrase “shadows are crooked with a knife,” meaning old memories coming back to haunt you. “Shotgun” is one of the band’s oldest hymns, which was previously released on the self-released EP “The Chestnut Tree” in 2004, and was also featured on the speed-racing videogames “Burnout Revenge,” and “Burnout Legends.”
“We wanted the cd to be all over the place. Every song has a self-contained entity,” Fink said.
Each song completely differs from one another. The last track “Broadway and Hurst” was a complete surprise.
“‘Broadway and Hurst’ is completely made up, false,” St. John said.
Fink said it was just a gloomy day in San Diego when the band decided to write a musical and ended up writing a whole narrative about their friend Nick Foster, who faked an English accent on the track.
In addition to other surprises, The Outline plays not only for young hipsters in venues across the country, but for older audiences as well. Parents of kids who come to the shows are impressed by the band’s use of eclectic musical influence of David Bowie and Radiohead.
“I think that’s really flattering to hear [compliments] from people who grew up listening to the Rolling Stones and the Beetles [and] like us as well,” Fink said.
The Outline will continue to tour the U.S. until the end of the year 2006.
