Elemental Properties
This Utah County band's got chemistry.
by Kelly Ashkettle
kashkettle@inthisweek.com
(Photos by Kelly Ashkettle | In Utah This Week)
Elemental gets ready to clean out your ears.
John Fogg, Scott Gustaveson and Jeff Caron call on the Elemental forces of nature.
You may have heard of The Green Desert Festival; it was to be a three-day music event held this weekend in the desert near Eureka, Utah. Promotion was going strong: There was a Web site, a MySpace page, a Facebook page — even radio ads on X96. Then, on Saturday, the event was abruptly canceled — OK, "postponed."
"The Juab county sheriff heard rumors that it was going to be a great big rave and took away the approval of the event," festival operator Robert Anderson e-mailed me on Saturday. This may not come as a surprise to those who recall Utah County's handling of the Versus II rave in Spanish Fork Canyon three years ago.
On the Green Desert Web site, the organizers have posted a statement that includes the following: "This event is intended to showcase many of the talented bands in Utah and was never going to be a rave, just a festival to get away from the city and enjoy some great music."
In his e-mail to me, Anderson wrote, "We will keep you posted and plan on moving it to Salt Lake County in the spring." In the meantime, the bands who were scheduled to play the Green Desert Festival have to console themselves with other upcoming appearances.
One of these is Elemental, a band based in Orem. They were scheduled to play a prime slot this Saturday, and while that won't be happening now, they've already had another Utah festival appearance lined up for next Saturday. The moody rock outfit is scheduled to appear at the third annual Music to Clean Your Ears Out Festival on Sept. 27 at The Gallivan Center. The event is a showcase for Elemental's record label, Eden's Watchtower. The festival also functions as a fundraiser for Spyhop, a not-for-profit youth media arts and education center that encourages young filmmakers.
The timing couldn't be better: Elemental just released their debut album, "Down to the Wire," on Aug. 21. And last weekend, they had the opportunity to open for one of their biggest influences: Wayne Hussey, frontman for '80s dark rock outfit The Mission U.K. As Elemental performed for the mostly 30-something crowd, heads bobbed and appreciative smiles were exchanged, and slowly, the realization spread among the audience members: The singer/guitarist for Elemental is John Fogg, founder of the mid-1990s local shoegazer band, Amethyst Wristrocket.
Amethyst Wristrocket (who can still be heard on MySpace at www.myspace.com/amethystwristrocket), shared a guitarist and frequently performed with Elsewhere, another local band who had a similar vibe. Elsewhere was fronted by Hyrum Summerhays, who's since gone on to a career as a sound engineer and founded Eden's Watchtower Records.
Summerhays recalls that he and Fogg had a mutual group of friends, but they lost touch after Fogg got married and started raising children while going to school. Then one day, Summerhays got a phone call. "Do you still record?" Summerhays remembers Fogg asking him about a year ago. "I'm finally doing music again and I want to record."
Fogg had actually formed the foundation of Elemental in 2001, but since the other members were also pursuing careers and raising young children, it took six years for the band to coalesce into a song-writing unit.
When Fogg called, Summerhays had, in fact, recently acquired space for his own studio, but hadn't yet built it. As luck would have it, the other two members of Elemental just happened to be general contractors. Elemental's drummer, Scott Gustaveson, and bassist, Jeff Caron, completed the Audio Space studio this past spring. In exchange, Elemental got to record an album there. The sound fit in well with the Eden's Watchtower roster, so it only made sense for the label to release the album.
Summerhays says he likes Elemental's sound because he enjoys Fogg's "roots in the whole 4AD thing" -- (4AD being the British label that housed bands like The Cocteau Twins and The Pixies); but he also appreciates the hard rock influences that Gustaveson brings to the fold. "I think it's a nice blending of a really melodic, pretty, somewhat ethereal sound with some harder, rougher edges," Summerhays explains.
As Fogg puts it, "Some parts are relaxing, some parts are really jarring, some parts are beautiful and some parts kick a little butt." He resists labeling the sound, though; he likes to say the music is "unpigeonhole-able."
"We obviously have a lot of heavy space rock and shoegaze influences, and a little goth and a little metal and a little new wave; it's just that we haven't come up with anything that's worked yet [as a description]," Fogg says. "When 20 other bands start copying us, then we'll come up with a name for the genre."
It's fitting that Gustaveson and Caron, who work in construction, lay the band's foundation as the drummer and bassist; while Fogg, a graphic designer, provides the melody and message. However, all three speak of a lack of passion for their non-musical professions, and a longing to make their living from music. Now in their mid-30s, they talk of a feeling that things may finally be starting to come together. Gustaveson, in particular, expresses a strong belief that they will be able to support themselves from Elemental in time. "We feel like it's not a matter of if, but when," he says. "I've been in bands ever since I was 16 or 17, and just never been with any group of people that have really been serious about it except for Jeff and John."
"We're definitely serious and passionate about the music; we're just trying to find a way to make everything work," says Fogg.
