Sev

Sev is a rock band from the Northern Virginia area who appeared in a national advertising campaign for Pepsi Blue. Sev also appeared on the website come-alive show Farmclub and the summer festival in the Washington D.C. area that typically sets off the summer concert season, the HFStival.

Biography

The Washington D.C. area band Sev first performed together live on October 31, 1995. The formation happened earlier that summer when Max asked bassist Will, who was in another band at the time with him to start a new project. With the gears in motion for a new sound, Will brought in his high school friend, Dennis, as a drummer. Singer/rapper Phil was the next to join, followed quickly by vocalist Danny.

The Rise

Sev quickly gained the attention of the Mid-Atlantic Music Scene. Winning the "Big Break" contest hosted by at-the-time local alternative rock radio station 99.1 WHFS, SEV opened the 1999 HFStival with their performance on the Street Stage. In 2000, Sev started a campaign to be noticed by major labels in New York City. One of the labels to take notice was Farmclub, represented by Marcie Jacobson. Farmclub was a website / TV show / record label venture headed by Interscope (Jimmy Iovine) and head of Geffen (Doug Morris). Bands would upload tracks, get voted on, get enough votes perform on the show, and if you impressed them enough they would sign you to their label. Sev uploaded their music and their fans responded, which led to Sev being the first band to get signed through the website and TV show.

On the show, Sev performed the songs Stand Straight and Same Old Song, these were the songs that were voted on the Farmclub website. Stand Straight became Sev's first national single on Farmclub compilations, but not as an "official single" from the band. Sev immediately went into the studio in 2000 to cash-in on their sudden success.

Label Controversy

The show Farmclub aired on the USA Network on Monday nights after WWF Monday Night RAW. However, when RAW moved to TNN in late 2000, Farmclub's core audience went with it. Farmclub lost their core audience and the venture crumbled. This led to Sev being pushed on to the Geffen label. With the label shake up, it took 2 years for Geffen to release All These Dreams in June 2002. After the release of the promised album from the Farmclub label, Geffen announced it had no other plans for the band and stopped all communication.

In July 2002, Pepsi launched a new soft drink called Pepsi Blue. They wanted bands from the Universal label (Geffen). Pepsi picked out Sev's Same Old Song to represent their new product. The concept was to record a music video and a commercial using the same footage and with hopes that Pepsi Blue would be seen in both commercial and music video. Since the future at the label was bleak, Sev saw this as the only way to get at least a music video from Pepsi, which the label did not want to fund, and some exposure. "Same Old Song" eventually peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales charts.^[1]

The Band Today

The band has gone through a various change of their rhythm section of bass and drums. The additional members have come from both Washington D.C. local music bands and members from other national level bands. As of Spring 2006, the band has been playing the Washington D.C. area locally for a few select dates. No plans for a new album have been mentioned.

Lineup

Current Members

• Max Alley - Guitar
• Danny Schools - vocals, Guitar
• Phil Clayman - vocals
• Matt "Pampers" Hughes- drums
• Matt Waller - Bass

Former Members

• Chris Mullen - Bass - Formerly of Primer 55
• Bill Ledbetter - drums - Filled in during "Pampers'" hiatus, from the band Welbilt.
• Tim Pryor - Bass - Formerly of local band Ethix
• Jeremy Fowler- 2nd Guitar
• Dennis Fay - drums
• Will Mazur - Bass

Discography

Albums

U.S. Releases

All These Dreams CD / LP (Geffen, 2002)

1. All These Dreams
2. Same Old Song
3. Menace To Society
4. When
5. All Right By Me
6. Stand Straight
7. 24/7/365
8. Front Of The Line
9. What You Got For Me
10. Lust
11. Player
12. Twisted

Back Rider CD / LP (1998)

1. Techno
2. 24-7
3. Higher
4. Advance
5. Who's Got The Mic?
6. Crashing
7. Jump (Remix)
8. Gotta (Remix)
9. Buy It (Remix)

68. Bonus Track 69. Bonus Track

Sunflower CD / LP (1996)

1. Drop
2. Stand
3. Gotta
4. When
5. Jump
6. Drinking
7. Buy It
8. Hip Hop Habeeb (bonus track)

Singles

• Same Old Song (2002)

References

External links

• SEV Official Site
• Artist Direct - SEV
• VH1 - SEV
• Official Myspace - SEV