Rick Gillette of the band Nowhere Slow can recall the very first moment when he knew the group had hit its stride. It was the first time the band layed Tink's in Scranton. The club was packed, the group was playing well, and as he peered out into the crowd, he saw smiles on people's faces.
At that moment, he says, a musical connection was made and a musical goal ealized.
"We totally feed off the energy of the crowd," says Gillette, who serves s the group's lead vocalist and guitarist. "We really just want them to move and dance."
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Despite its youth, people have been moving and dancing to Nowhere Slow for quite a while. The band, which also includes Jeff Hertzog on drums, J.J. Alba on guitar and Will Clauss on bass, was formed four years ago, and though the band has seen a few personnel changes, Gillette, 22, and Hertzog, 26, who are cousins, began playing together when they were still children.
"He played guitar, and we actually made a whole album, which my mom has stored in a vault somewhere," Gillette says with a laugh. "It's eight original songs that we wrote when we were 7 and 11 years old. It's kind of funny. They're all like 40-second songs, and they don't make sense, but we always had that kind of dream, and we just stuck with it."
Indeed. The band has released two CDs, 2002's "Look Up And Jam" and 2004's "Two Weeks," which includes the tracks "Ditto," "Signs and Streetlights" and "New Moon." The group also recently recorded three new songs, which are being shopped to record labels and may be released as a new EP. Some of the group's acoustic-based rock also has received airplay on 102.3-FM, The Mountain.
Gillette says the title of the "Two Weeks" CD comes not from the time spent in the studio but from one of the band's inside jokes.
"We were always joking around, 'When are we going to get signed? In two weeks. In two weeks,' " he says with another chuckle. "Everything that we said we'd get done, or when anybody would ask us a question, we'd say, 'Two weeks.' "
In addition to playing originals, Nowhere Slow sprinkles in some covers, offering tunes by artists such as Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Sublime, Maroon 5 and Paul Simon. Gillette names Matthews and Mayer as two of the band's biggest influences.
"They're the two that really got me wanting to play the acoustic guitar, and the whole band wanting to get into that style of music," he says.
Gillette, who writes all of the song's lyrics, says he's already changed his writing style in some ways.
"I don't like to write songs about specific people, because I've done that before," he says. "I don't like having that attachment, and having that song carry on and always making me think about that certain thing. If people make me feel a certain way I'll write about it, but I try not to tag a name to it."
Gillette says that though most of his songs are about relationships, he also tries to tackle other subjects. Ultimately, though, the journeys of love remain his favorite muse. "I always try to get away from it, because I always get paranoid that I'm writing about it too much, but it kind of always turns around, and I go right back to it," he says. "It always seems to go back that way."
Still, such songs aren't always inspired by his own experiences.
"It doesn't have to pertain to me at all," he says. "I always like to think of a plot first, then run away with it."
Gillette performs solo every Thursday night at Heil's in Scranton, and the full band performs 9:30-11 p.m. every Friday at Tink's. He says energetic crowds remain an inspiration to the band.
"If there's a lot of people and they're having a good time, we don't miss a lick."
For more information on the band, visit www.nowhereslow.com.