PORT ANGELES — After playing 37 gigs in 21 states in 32 days, the members of the teenage rock band, The Lonely H, will roll into town eager to perform for a hometown crowd.
Tonight (Saturday), the band members will celebrate the release of their newest album, “Hair,” and their homecoming with an all-ages show at the Masonic Temple on Lincoln Street.
“It’s our hometown It’s just gonna be good to see all the people we haven’t seen,” said Mark Fredson, the band’s 18-year-old singer and keyboardist.
“People are going to be into it and people are going to be dancing.”
Four of the band’s five band members graduated from Port Angeles High School in June, and the fifth graduated last year.
They recorded “Hair” during the school year and launched their tour three weeks after graduation to promote the album.
Fredson said venues along the tour have not been packed, but that is not unusual.
“On your first tour, it is all about good people and good music, not necessarily about huge crowds,” he said.
“It’s about rocking the faces off who’s there, and next time they bring their friends.
“Club owners say they’ll pack it next time.”
During the summer the band enjoyed some national success and exposure.
The band was featured on Spin magazine’s Web site as “band of the day” on Aug. 6, and learned on Tuesday that “Hair” was listed as 99 on the Top 200 list of College Music Journal.
Seeing America
The band will drive its 2002 Chevrolet van up Interstate 5 to Mount Vernon today for a show there, then to Port Angeles for Saturday’s show.
In driving around the country, the band members have seen a lot of the nation.
By being in close quarters, they’ve learned that they can probably live together in Seattle as they attend college at Cornish College of Fine Arts and the University of Washington in the fall.
“If we haven’t slept that much, we get a little testy,” Fredson said.
“We learned that we mesh pretty well together. You bond if you’re brotherly.”
Eric Whitman, one of the band’s guitarists, said the short tour has reaffirmed that he wants to make a living playing music as long as he can.
“I figured out that, for my life right now, this is the thing I want to do. I wasn’t sure before,” Whitman said.
“It is probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my life — seeing America — it’s a pretty . . huge country.”
When interviewed in June, band members said they were particularly excited about visiting Austin, Texas.
When they were there, the remnants of Hurricane Aaron were dumping a heavy rain.
But the rest of Texas was hot and fun to play, Fredson said.
But his favorite place was San Francisco, which had a “really chill feel.”
Whitman said he enjoyed upstate New York and eastern Kansas as they drove closer to the Mississippi River Valley.
But getting to the Mississippi was bland.
“The great plains is one of the most boring areas. I didn’t know America ate that much corn,” Whitman said.
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THE LONELY H will play an all-ages show on Saturday at the Masonic Temple at 622 S. Lincoln St. in Port Angeles.
Tickets will cost $7.
Doors will open at 7:30 p.m.; the music starts an hour later.
Opening for the band will be Alien Crime Syndicate, which has as its frontman, Joe Reineke, the Lonely H’s manager.
The original opening act, The Wildbirds, was touring with The Lonely H, but its van broke down in San Jose, Calif.
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Reporter Randy Trick can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at randy.trick@peninsuladailynews.com.
