Thursday night. A basement in Bethesda, Maryland. Rezin’s biweekly jam-practice-party. The Budweiser is flowing, but the band still have their wits about them. They’ll cop to an affinity for head shops, porn boutiques and strip clubs — the four-hour drives home from gigs get boring, and once singer-songwriter-guitarist Pete Swindler is done explaining his lyrics, they have to do something to amuse themselves — but the four members of the Baltimore-DC beltway band are still pretty tight-lipped when it comes to revealing potentially embarrassing information.

“We did get pulled over once,” says bassist-backup vocalist Jon Blank. “We were driving through Jersey after a Philly show. It was a random thing. They just didn’t like the cut of the bus. It’s like three o’clock in the morning... And they look at us, and their dog is going berserk. And everything was cool. I think we got out of it because he said, Are you guys anything like Marilyn Manson? And we said, No. So they let us go. And we’re very fond of the New Jersey State Police."

"Even though some of us do like Marilyn," Jon adds, "we didn’t make that information available to them.”

The vehicle from the story is the Rezin Bus, a gray ‘82 GMC Vandura. The short bus sits in the driveway. Its rear seats have been replaced with a leather couch, and a fake green marble floor adds to feel of a simulated living room. For the past few years, the van’s taken them around the Mid-Atlantic. This month, it will take them as far as South Carolina, then back for a Thanksgiving-Eve show at Paloma’s in Baltimore, a gig at Baltimore’s 8x10, an appearance at Damascus, MD’s Basement Lounge and three U-Hero shows.

Rezin’s regular circuit sees the band share the stage with friends and peers including Capital Punishment, Chykn on Gate, Great Mutant Skywheel, Lopan, Smudge Proof and Weapons for Peace. Pete says clubgoers can expect to hear material from the band’s first two albums, Stanley (1998, Projectile) and Summer of the Brain Dead Everyone (2000, Fowl), plus a taste of new material.

“We’ve been slowly injecting new songs into the set,” says Pete. “And with the older ones, we kind of decide on the spot what we’re playing. Right now, we’re playing two newer ones to six older ones.”

Jon says that any given night’s set is improvised; there usually is no set list. “It changes around a lot,” says Jon. “We’ll be on stage, he’ll look at me, like, ‘C.O.W.C.O.D.’ next? And I’ll be like, Sure. We’ve just got to let Matt [the drummer] know if he starts the songs or not. Andy’s down with everything.”

While Pete and Jon tend to run rampant onstage, guitarist Andy Hughes is given to zoning out during the show, concentrating on the music. The engine in the bus that is Rezin, Andy has learned lessons from jazz. Favorites such as Miles Davis have taught him to keep on his toes and stay loose at the same time. In the Rezin dynamic, flexibility is key.

“Our biggest thing is trying to get a groove going,” says Andy, “and then totally do a 180 and change everything around and watch everybody try to catch up with what’s going on. We really get off on that.”

Andy’s fluid jazz sensibility spills over into the live material. Rezin fans never see the band play same set twice, and unless they’re listening to the CDs, they usually won’t hear the same song the same way. Songs such as “It Wasn’t” and “Gurgle” are constantly mutating. These practice sessions can lead to developing finding new accents and emphases for their tunes.

“The songs are always getting a little bit different live,” says Pete. “It would be awfully boring to play the same thing over and over again. The parts will change. It will maintain the same basic form and everything, but we’ll go off here and there.”

The owner of the commanding voice that has become the group’s calling card, Pete is the sole founding member of Rezin. The man behind the wheel since 1992, Pete has since filled the bus with bandmates who have garnered equal acclaim: drummer Matt Collazo has been in the group since 1995, Andy since 1998, and Jon since 1999. That lineup recorded last year’s loud, rough and raw CD. Now Rezin are preparing for an imminent return to the studio. The producer on Rezin’s first two discs, Live Alien Broadcast’s Frank Marchand (Nothingface, Corduroy9, Sixty Watt Shaman) will return for the third album.

According to Jon, the sound on display in their live show should carry over to the next release. “I think we’re playing a lot of heavier songs,” says Jon. “But it’s still Rezin. We have a formula we’ve been using that I believe is working very well.”

Pete describes an example, the new live staple, “One Shoe Off.” “It switches around,” says Pete. “It starts off broken up, then it goes into a groove area. Then the time switches up completely. It’s kind of disconnected with the way it’s put together. It’s real wild.”

“We’re trying to put out something on a regular basis,” says Jon. “We’re continually writing, coming up with new material, trying to put it all together while keeping the songs that we know tight.”

“The live show is very loud,” says Pete. “The live show has a lot of stuff going on. Like the CD has a lot going on. Listen to the disc with headphones — it’s a lot more fun. And live, it’s about trying to blow things up.”

[ UH ]

>> Relevant Information:
web: www.RezinNation.com
e-mail: rezinmusic1@hotmail.com
booking: Matt, 301.461.9617