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Vail: Meese to rock Teva Games

Caramie Schnell
cschnell@vaildaily.com
Vail, CO Colorado
Special to the Vail lDailyDenver band Meese plays a free show at Checkpoint Charlie in Vail, Colorado Friday night as part of the Teva Mountain Games Mountains of Music concert series.
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VAIL, Colorado –Like many rock stars, Patrick Meese – who brings his band, Meese, to Vail, Colorado Friday – got his addictions out of his system early in life. As a teenager growing up in Ohio he developed an affinity for “raver drugs.”

“I was too young to go to the raves, but not too young to buy the drugs,” he said during a phone interview from Birmingham, Ala. Earlier this week, Patrick’s band, Meese, opened for Serena Ryder at Workplay, a popular live music venue in Birmingham.

In 2001, after a stint in rehab in Montana followed by boarding school in Idaho, Patrick moved to Denver to attend music school at Colorado Christian University. And though he found out pretty quickly that the Christian music scene wasn’t for him – “It didn’t feel right. The Christian music scene is just another way to make money and a lot of people running the show weren’t Christians and didn’t have such great moral standards,” Patrick said – he played in some good Christian bands and had a good time doing it, he said.



Meese, his current project, didn’t come to be until early 2005, after his brother Nathan – his little bro by 18 months – followed his brother’s lead and moved to Denver. It didn’t take them long to decide to start a band. After all, the boys had been playing in bands together since fifth grade, Patrick said.

“I used to play drums and sing from the drum set and he’d play guitar,” he said, adding that their parents were also very musically inclined. “There’s something that carries over in the blood line to siblings when it comes to music. Maybe we should study that and I can write a book or something.”

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Friday night the siblings, joined by bandmates Benjamin Haley (drums) and Mike Ayars (guitar), will play a free show at Checkpoint Charlie in Vail. It’ll be the Denver-based band’s second show in Vail in just over six months – they opened for The Fray at Snow Daze in December. It was a memorable outdoor set.

“We were just talking about that show,” he said. “It was when it snowed like 3 feet.”

After Nathan joined Patrick in Denver, they quickly snagged Haley and Ayars, solidifying the Meese lineup. Not long after an early demo of “Tell Me It’s Over” became popular on Denver modern rock station KTCL/93.3-FM, the boys signed with Atlantic Records.

“That was the goal. Every band is different, but for us and where we were in our lives – three of us being married – we wanted to do the major label thing because financially speaking, it’s easier to get money from a major label.”

And even though Patrick believes the traditional record industry is dying, the decision was an easy one.

“It’ll be totally different when we’re older, when we have kids. I wanted to get in and do the traditional sign-to-a-label-and-make-a-CD thing before it changes,” he said.

Meese’s new album, “Broadcast,” was produced by Sean Beavan (Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Depeche Mode) and is set to be released June 30. Patrick called the process, which began in March 2008, “long and drawn out.”

“I’m getting to the point now where I’m nervous because it’s been so long,” he said.

Though the band finished the album last summer, they spent 10 months or so tweaking it and added a song they wrote for the “Twilight” soundtrack. (The song didn’t make the soundtrack, but it’s on the new album.) The album’s songs show the band’s broad range of styles, from guitar-ladden rock to pop-heavy electronic. “Tell Me It’s Over,” the album’s lead single, is a poppy-yet-soulful anthem that makes you want to sing along.

Patrick said the song is his favorite to play live.

“It’s got a great beat, and I love how the rhythm of the lyrics works with the beat … Something about the attitude of the song just resonates with me, and it makes me feel badass.”

What: Meese performs; The Pete Kilpatrick band opens.

Where: Checkpoint Charlie, Vail.

When: 6 p.m., Friday night.

Cost: Free.

More information: Visit http://www.tevamountaingames.com.

High Life Editor Caramie Schnell can be reached at 970-748-2984 or cschnell@vaildaily.com.


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