Band of Brothers
By Kevin Erb

Don’t ever let it be said that irony is without a sense of humor. In fact, when you really think about it, irony is, in its pure essence, a humorous phenomenon, because that which is the least likely to happen, at least logically speaking, is what in actuality happens. The sheer irrationality that makes irony so, therefore, is also what makes it so amusing to us mere mortals.

Take the guys from the band Brother, for example. The classic-rock-cover foursome, made up of — you guessed it — brothers Mark (vocalist, bassist), Mike (vocalist, percussionist) and Chris (vocalist, guitarist) Magdich, along with Lonnie Lemons (vocalist, guitarist), are all extremely talented musicians, each with a dynamically diverse musical background.

Mike Magdich is a world-class percussionist, is fluent in a host of musical genres and is even in the process of composing his own symphony. His twin brother Mark has taught himself to play nine different instruments, has trained vocally as an opera singer and spent the better part of the past two decades in Los Angeles as a highly sought-after session player because of his guitar prowess. Chris Magdich, 13 years Mike and Mark’s junior, however, followed a different path: His first musical experiences were with heavy and dark metal bands with ominous-sounding names like Midwest Kill Syndicate. Lemons, the unofficial fourth Magdich brother, was reared musically in the blues, learning acts like Earth, Wind & Fire and Jeff Beck.

Just exactly where is the irony in all of this, you may ask? Because in all of the varied formal training and experience the guys from Brother have racked up, Mike Magdich sums up the group’s playing philosophy best with a simple and straight-forward quote like this: “We are the biggest Journey heads in the world.”

Yes, you heard him right. Brother have earned themselves a rather faithful following in rock clubs like Peanuts and Peanuts Too and even country joints like the Rock-n-Horse by mastering some of the most hard-core, bare-bones classic rock out there. For all their training in so many different genres of music, Mike says earnestly, you just can’t beat the feeling you get from throwing a kickin’ Boston cover to a more-than-ready crowd.

“I can listen to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, and then turn around and pop in the new Styx album without even thinking about it,” Mike explains. “And that’s how we all are: We bring in a bunch of different influences. But when we’re up there together, and we get right down to it, we know there’s nothing that beats playing straight-up rock n’ roll.”

Mike and Mark have been playing together off and on for the past 20 years, with Lemons a constant part of the equation. Each had basically been on his own as a musician since Mark’s departure for the West Coast. About a year ago, Mark decided to move back to Indiana and almost immediately professed that any musical future he had here would at least include Mike and most likely Lonnie, too. After Chris made the decision to shift his professional playing back towards rock from the heavier stuff, Brother was formed. In the little time they’ve been playing together again, Mike says, they’ve already found enthusiastic crowds for their superbly talented act.

“We have a lot of fun on stage,” he says. “It’s easy to do, because I’ve got my brothers up there with me. And I just love the talent we have in the group. We’ve got two really good guitar players [Mark and Lonnie] up there every night.”

Boasting the type of pure musical talent the members of Brother do allows the group to try all kinds of things lesser musicians wouldn’t dream of trying to get away with in front of the whatzup area’s notoriously fickle classic rock crowd, he emphasizes.

“Mark and myself have maintained the philosophy over the years that, as a mainly cover group, it’s not what you play, but how well you play it,” Mike explains. We’ve all been musicians for all of our lives, so we’re never tentative about trying new things out with our act.”

One of the newest things the foursome has been implementing into its live shows — to rave reviews — has been a nightly acoustic set. Mike slips out from behind his drum set and joins Mark, Chris and Lonnie on bar stools at the front of the stage for intimate and involving acoustic performance that he says has been a huge hit so far. “The crowd ate it up the first time we did it,” Mike says of the acoustic performance. “Part of what I think makes it so cool for the audience is that we perform songs you would never think of hearing in an acoustic setting.”

He also says the group thinks the audience is drawn to their acoustic sets because they can’t help but let a little brotherly rivalry seep through.

“ Mark and I will have these ‘vocal wars’ on stage during the acoustic sets,” Mike explains. “It’s a lot of fun for us to sit up there and do something like that. Of course, because of his opera training [Mark sang it for five years], he ends up blowing me out the door. But it’s always a crowd-pleaser, and we certainly have fun with it.”

For now, due in large part to each member of Brother’s unfortunate circumstance of having “real” jobs, they have stuck to what they know best: cover songs and a limited number of gigs and venues. It’s hard to keep talent like this under wraps for too long, however; Mike says he and Mark are both working on original material they want to start inserting intermittently into their live acts, and they also want to expand their playing area, albeit cautiously.

“Mark is an incredible songwriter,” Mike says. “But this market doesn’t call too much for strictly original material, so we’re working on it slowly and are going to sprinkle it into our sets.”

If enough solid original material surfaces in the next few months, though, Mike contends a first Brother album could be available in the whatzup area as early as this summer. And if not? Oh well.

“This is a building process for us, and we want to take it at our own pace,” Mike contends. “The future is wide open for the four of us. I haven’t heard anything negative about the band yet, and I don’t foresee it getting any worse for us in the future. We can only improve as a group.”

Copyright 2003 Ad Media Inc.