Take5 with Eidman Hall

If you see Eidman Hall at one of their many live shows around the Valley, you may be in for a pleasant surprise. I'll give you a hint ... its a girl.

The all-boy band has added a new voice, Sonia Bautista. Bautista, 26, whose powerful vocal stylings were debuted Friday at Hurricane's, started singing in church as well as making the karaoke circuit but had never played with a live band before.

"I've known the guys from Eidman Hall. I've known them for years already and I know that they are all exceptional musicians," the Los Fresnos native said. "They are really great people not only musically but personally and it's really great working with them."

While the focus is still on creating original music, there are several new things in store for the band including a new EP. The group will also begin touring nationally this summer.

"We had been wanting to expand our cover catalog and we wanted to go out on the road," said Eidman Hall's male vocalist Chris Garcia. By adding a female vocalist "I can provide a service and a product that not many bands do. I really, really have nothing but high hopes and aspirations for what she has to offer."

The Scoop talked to the members of Eidman Hall about their music, their plans and their newest addition.

How did the band get it's name?

Eddie Hernandez, 24, Brownsville, lead guitar: Well our first name was Evolution and once we started to, I guess, expand we looked it up and there were a bunch of bands with the same name.

Chris Garcia, 25, Brownsville, vocals and guitar: We were all music majors at the university so whenever we would perform around campus people just happen to say ‘Oh those are the guys from Eidman Hall.' People knew us as the guys from Eidman Hall, so we just ran with it. We needed another name anyhow.

How did you get into music?

Xavier Gonzalez, 26, Harlingen, saxophone/keyboard: I guess I'd always been interested in music as a kid, I mean I was in band in sixth grade, you know, playing the saxophone and I guess that's where I really started getting into music and really learning how to play an instrument.

Eddie Hernandez: I started out in band in like middle school playing the sax. After that I wanted play sports but they couldn't put me in the certain class that I wanted so I had to take a music class, which was for guitar. So I ended up taking that guitar class and I liked it so much that it just stuck.

Chris Garcia: I got into music earlier in life. My mom was always listening to music when I was growing up and she'd be around the house singing and so I just kind of chased her around the house and sang with her. When I was able to join choir in middle school I joined it and just ran with it. In high school I took it a little bit more seriously and I just continued on through college.

Robert Reyes, 23, Brownsville, drummer: A friend of mine was in the drum line and I got real into it because of that ... watching drumlines. I started to play in band in middle school and got really into drums and music.

How did the band get started?

Eddie Hernandez: It pretty much started with just me and Chris. We met and we just started writing songs and it just kind of took off from there. Like, it kind of happened over night - well, it feels that way. I wrote a couple of songs and Chris was like you know what, we need maybe one more member. So I was like, ‘Okay, I know a guy' and so I brought in my friend X (Xavier). Then we wanted to get a little further, you know, to have drums and bass and what-not so I told him ‘You know what, I have another guy' so I brought my drummer (Robert) and for the past four or five years it's pretty much been the four of us.

Chris Garcia: I had wanted to start a band for quite some time and I just didn't have the resources, as far as musicians that I knew were capable of doing the type of music that I wanted to do. I met Eddie through a mutual friend and he didn't want to join the band initially. He was pretty resistant, but he was the best guitarist that I've ever, ever heard and you know, he's classically trained - well we all are, but I couldn't find anyone else that could do what he did. He was classically trained and he was heavily influenced with popular music and that was what I was looking for - a good balance between the two. I chased him around long enough - you know he couldn't duck me. We had class together and I'd sit next to him and I'd just bug him until he said yes. And we haven't looked back ever since.

When was that?

Xavier Gonzalez: It was approximately, I would say, October of 2003 when we started the band. I would say around that time.

How would you describe your sound?

Xavier Gonzalez: Our sound has changed a lot over the years but I would describe it as ... we call it progressive pop/rock. It's kind of like a mix of some of are influences would be like John Mayer, The Goo Goo Dolls, U2, Coldplay and The Fray.

Chris Garcia: I think that the word pop has become synonymous with a lack as far as quality of music. But that's not necessarily true because popular music is constantly changing and there are some great popular bands out there - like the John Mayer Trio and John Mayer himself, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys. People like this are true, true musicians in the sense that they know about music, they truly study their craft and they do it in a way that it's hard for anyone to judge them and to say that that person is not good at what they do. The music is really popular in the sense that it's listener friendly but it's also very interesting to sing or play, because it's technical as well. And that's where we want to fall in line. We love popular music - Michael Jackson, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, The Gap Band. Bands like this they drive us. That's popular music but if you talk to any musician out there, they'll tell that these are some of the baddest cats you've ever heard play.

Eddie Hernandez: Now? Our influences change like every other month. You know we hear different bands and we're like ‘Oh cool, let's write a song like that.' It's kind of cool. One of the songs on the internet, that we have on our MySpace page - I took the musical idea from a song that I saw on "Chicken Little" and we ended up writing a really cool song. That's kind of how we write. We hear something we like and we make it our own, basically.

What are the plans for the band?

Eddie Hernandez: Not so much to be famous but to get our music out there. I think if we are a band that is always touring but doesn't exactly come out on the radio all the time, I don't think that would bother us as long as we kept working.

Xavier Gonzalez: We are working on an EP that should be done within the next couple of months hopefully. We're just finishing up the last tracks and it's gonna be about, I would say, anywhere between 5 to 7 songs that are going to be on there for sure. Basically we are self-producing it. We have a studio that we're working at in Brownsville and so there's a couple of studio engineers that are helping us record, but as far as producing the album and writing the songs, it's all us.

Robert Reyes: We have a good relationship with the radio stations. Hopefully we can set up a meeting with them and they'll play our songs on the station.

Chris Garcia: By the end of the month as a cover band we should be going out on the road to tour on the East Coast. Our plans are to make stints of six to eight weeks, then come back and play a few shows in the Valley, but we'll keep them just original shows. We really just want to go out on the road and get that road experience. It's kind of like college for musicians, so to speak, because you can read the books all you want but if you don't get out there and experience what its like ... it's like on the job training. You get to find out what you and your band is made of.

So, you're putting out original music for the EP, but out at the venues we hear a lot of cover music. Why is that?

Chris Garcia: We know a lot musicians who are pursuing musical aspirations with just their original material. To be honest with you it's extremely, extremely difficult to go out to a venue and perform all of your music that no one has ever heard before and still have people respond in a positive way. What we've learned that if you win the crowd over, you play what they enjoy hearing and every now and then you throw in your original material, they are a little bit more open-minded to hearing it.

Eddie Hernandez: The thing about covers is it pays your bills and at the same time you can introduce you original music and people don't even know it. And then you can give out your CDs and what-not and people really don't know what to expect then when they hear it then they'll be asking for stuff that's on the CD rather than the covers. So it kind of works out both ways for us.

What do you think of having Sonia sing with you?

Robert Reyes: You know, it's really benefited us. We're really glad we added her. She brings a lot.

Eddie Hernandez: Oh it's a lot of fun. It's a girl for one and people tend to warm up to a girl a little bit faster than they do to a guy on stage, you know. An all guy band is kind of like an average thing but when you have a girl singer - people warmed up to her really fast. It totally changes the dynamic because I'm so used to playing with the guys and pretty much know what we are thinking you know throughout the performance and here comes a girl. And I know nothing about what she's thinking ... It was kind of cool not knowing what to expect but still getting good results from it.

Xavier Gonzalez: We added something to the band. Obviously a new voice and a new personality, you know. It adds a whole new list of songs that we couldn't do before as far as our cover material that we do play. It adds a new fresh element and new ideas.

Check out the band's site at www.myspace.com/eidmanhall.

Catch Eidman Hall live May 3 at Tequila Frog's on South Padre Island.