If you set one man behind a keyboard and another behind a laptop on stage, you'd probably end up with some kind of dance music, postmodern electronic noise, or some ugly Postal Service redux. Not if you are the men behind the duo known as Home Before Sundown.
"Most of the time when you hear 'electronic', you think of dance or rave music. I personally don't really care of that stuff. We are still trying to write songs the same way we did in a rock band setting, but we've put the limitations on ourselves to do it digitally," says Mike Savage, vocalist and keyboard player. With those limitations, he and multi-instrumentalist, Max Arbow, have created a sexy, emotionally stirring sound that is easy on the ears and hard to forget.
Considering the depth of the group's sound and the imaginative arrangements, it would be easy to assume that the two have been music obsessive's their whole lives. Not so much, according to Savage. "I used to never even listen to music. I didn't even own a single album until after I graduated from high school. I started playing guitar when I was 17 and I thought I was way too old to start playing music. I would...pick up the acoustic and strum for a few minutes if I felt like it, then go off and watch TV."
Despite that Savage put himself down as a music major in college. "I was by far the worst one there. Everyone else had been playing classical music since they were 3 years old and there I was: a half-assed guitarist who knew five chords trying to keep up. [I] gave up. It didn't improve my guitar playing but I learned something about music."
What Savage did learn allowed him to start a band with Arbow called Wallace while both lived in Eugene, Oregon. The band didn't last when the two moved up to Portland but the two soldiered on. "We decided to start a new rock band and sort of pick up where we left off. It started out as a traditional sort of band setup...but I think by that point, we were already kind of over it and looking to do something different," says Savage.
In Arbow's view, paring things down to just a duo made opened up new avenues for their songwriting as well. "We eventually figured out that we really didn't need a third or fourth opinion in the band. We can still make the music we want...as a two piece and we're not giving up any of the creative freedom nor...any layers to the music."
The music that has come as a result has started pricking the ears up of many a music fan in their new hometown and has stretched across many a subculture. At a recent show at the Ash Street Saloon, the crowd was filled with goth kids, dolled up administrative assistants, and the indie kids all hanging on every beat and vocal line from the two. Savage has been "surprised at how good the response has been, actually." Arbow echoes that sentiment saying, "The response and validation to our band has been great and we have managed to increase our exposure for each subsequent show."
As the band works on new projects (they are working on a music video for the song "Redheaddeathbed" and will be recording new material to shop around soon), the two are creating a niche for themselves but ask Savage about it and he is hard pressed to tell you where that would be. "I have no idea what genre we fit into. I don't even know how to explain what we sound like to people who haven't heard us. Luckily Portland is the perfect town to have a musical identity crisis in."
