ESPN.com Features Stillwater’s Taddy Porter
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
ESPN.com published a feature on Stillwater band Taddy Porter yesterday.
In the interview, singer Andy Brewer talks about their new album, how the band formed and his superstitions with music.
Brewer also talks about his family’s love for baseball. His grandfather, Jim, pitched 17 seasons for the Cubs, Dodgers and Angels, his father, Mark, is the pitching coach for the Double-A Binghamton (N.Y.) Mets and Andy was a collegiate baseball player at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.
Taddy Porter’s music and baseball intertwine as well, as New York Mets pitcher Mike Pelfrey uses the band’s song “Shake Me” as his warm-up and at-bat music.
What’s the feeling for you and your bandmates with the album coming out?
It’s kind of like Christmas, you know. Or graduation or something like that. I remember whenever we got our album, just to look at it to see what it looked like. That was like Christmas. It was like, “All right, this is mine.” It’s like a gift that I can give to everybody, but no, it’s really cool. It’s by far one of the most exciting experiences that we’ve had in a long time.
Where did you get together with your bandmates?
It was right there in Stillwater, Okla. It was funny because I was a senior in college and I was pursuing graduating and everything. But then I met a bunch of guys. I randomly walked into a house where there was a party going on and I heard live drums being played.
I had been writing my own songs for a little while and I was looking for a drummer, another guitar player and a bass player. I walked into this house and I met my drummer just by coincidence. He was just playing and he just asked me, “Do you play?” And I picked up one of his guitars that he had in his room there and I played one of the songs that I had written. And the song that I wrote and the drums that he was playing, everything just came across, came through really fast. So I felt, OK, well I got something here.
And from then we met our drummer’s brother, who is now our bass player. And I started taking guitar lessons there in Stillwater, and my instructor at the time was and is now my lead guitar player. He was in a band at the time I started taking lessons from him. And that band ended up not going so well, and I was like, “Why don’t you come play with us?”
