Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Musing Music: Stephanie Collosi, lead singer and guitarist of the Willow Glen band 4 A.M., belts out one of the band's original tunes on a Friday evening at the King's Head Pub in Campbell. Guitarist Mark LaClair is in the background.
Willow Glen band releases album and starts performing in Bay Area
Four-person 4 A.M. does original songs in pop-rock style
By Kate Carter
A four-person musical troupe that calls Willow Glen its home is kicking off a round of performances throughout the Bay Area to showcase what a group of veteran musicians has accomplished by themselves and in a relatively short time.
The acoustic pop-rock band 4 A.M. showed its stuff Feb. 22 at Campbell's King's Head Pub before a crowd of supporters and well-wishers, who were entertained by the group's original tunes and vocal harmonies. The group struggled with some technical difficulties that made it hard for the group members to hear each other. But, led by singer Stephanie Collosi, 4 A.M. prevailed, giving a strong performance that had the middle-aged crowd tapping its feet and dancing in their seats.
The band's fourth performance was also a celebration of its recently released eponymous 10-track album, which it recorded out of percussionist Craig Williams' Willow Glen home. The band has gathered in his basement recording studio for twice-weekly rehearsals for nearly two years. It's now ready to leave the soundproof walls and share its music with others.
Most melodies and lyrics that 4 A.M. performs were composed by Collosi.
"It's a tougher way to go--when you're playing originals, you have bigger hopes and dreams," Williams says. "But it gets old playing other people's music. Every time we play somewhere, it's basically been our family and friends there. If there's one or two who are new, it's worth it. We're just now promoting ourselves and trying to get jobs."
Everyone in the group--Williams, Collosi, lead guitarist James Hughes and bassist Mark LaClair--also hold down day jobs, but none are new to playing music for others or to band membership. They say they have found a good thing in their collaboration with each other that gives them an outlet for the love of music that they share.
"If I didn't have music in my life, I'd go nuts," Williams says. "It just makes me feel good to play music, mainly to entertain and play for people. I just like to get up there and show people what I can do. I enjoy seeing people enjoying what I'm doing."
Williams, in his 40s, describes himself as the group's "father." He has lived in Willow Glen with his wife, Lucie, for 18 years, accompanied by their dogs Chloe and Ginger.
Williams says he started playing guitar when he was 8 years old. At the age of 15, he took up the drums after trying to convince his younger brother to play the skins in his band became a hassle.
"It's been drums ever since," he says.
Williams started playing in bands at age 12, playing at high school dances and the occasional school assembly.
"We were doing cover tunes, the Beatles, whatever was popular," he says.
Then Williams' band started to get gigs and make some money. It regularly played for the Willow Glen Moose Lodge, but had to refine its repertoire to the tastes of its audiences and learned some Neil Diamond, country and pop tunes.
Williams, who drives a truck during the day to leave his late afternoons and evenings free for his music, says he isn't disappointed that his early dreams of making a career out of music didn't pan out.
"I do love being at home," he says. "[Playing professionally] is something I've always dreamed of, but I'm very happy with where I am at."
The Band: Band members pose for the camera (from left) Stephanie Collosi, Craig Williams, Mark LaClair and James Hughes, make up the Willow Glen music group 4 A.M.
Photograph courtesy of 4 A.M.
Williams has continued to play with bands. He met Collosi in May 2000 when she advertised for musicians to join her in her solo singing-guitar performances. She was looking for a drummer, and Williams, who plays the drums as well as keyboard, guitar and mandolin, responded. Collosi and Williams found their musical ideas and interests similar, and then invited LaClair, a member of Williams' previous band, The Living Daylights, to come onboard.
The group began as a foursome called Animal Monday, which included a cellist who has since left and was replaced by guitarist Hughes about a year ago. At that time, the group changed its name to reflect the new configuration, and played with the number of members as well as the "a" and "m" of Animal Monday to come up with "4 A.M."
Collosi, 31, was ready to start working with a band when she realized she needed additional instruments and interpretations to deepen her songs.
"I wanted more than what I could do with my guitar," she says. "I decided to hold out and work with really great people. To find three other people that you're on the same page with, it's pretty incredible."
The Redwood City resident got her first guitar and guitar lessons from her high school sweetheart, a musician who now tours with popular soul performer Erykah Badu.
"I was just born musically inclined," Collosi says. "I was singing before I was talking."
She says she is the first person in her family to play a musical instrument, and she chose the guitar "because it's more of a vehicle for songwriting, and because that's where my interest really is."
Collosi says songwriting is a need for her, a creative impulse that helps her understand herself and the world around her. She writes about things that affect her personally and says her music's themes congregate around ideas of bringing one's childhood experiences along as one grows older, and trying to overcome the limits that those examples can create.
"I think that's what being an adult is--figuring out how to be," she says. "I'm trying to figure out a lot of things when I'm writing. A lot of my earlier stuff was therapy for me. It's about taking a concept and making it bigger."
Collosi writes one song every month and a half or so, some of which she never even shares with the rest of the band. In fact, performing is just as hard for her as not performing, because she shares so much of herself in her music. But she says having the band can help blunt the sensitivity of performing alone, which she used to do at open mic nights and small gigs in San Francisco.
"When you bring in a band, it helps hide some of what you're saying because you focus on the music," she says. "I feel naked sometimes [performing]. It's just that need to perform. I don't like to share it just as much as I do."
Williams says Collosi writes 99 percent of what the band plays, but every member participates in turning Collosi's ideas into songs they all like. Collosi comes to the band with an outline of chords, and then together the group works out the arrangement and each member writes his or her own part.
"She leaves it open for all of us to be creative," Williams says. "It's a tough thing; you get four or five people together and you try to get them as one. It's a lot of work and you put a lot of time into it."
It helps that they all value perfecting and performing original work and have similar tastes in music. Both Williams and Collosi say they take ideas from such popular bands as the Beatles, but that the inspiration really comes from within.
"I never could write anything but what I needed to write," Collosi says. "The ideas have always popped into my head."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Agile Fingers: Guitarist Mark LaClair (right) with drummer Craig Williams in the background, from the Willow Glen band 4 A.M.
Hughes, who wrote the song "Listless" on the band's album, is an accomplished songwriter in his own right, having written songs and sung for a band out of Long Beach. A full-time English literature teacher at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Menlo Atherton, he says his inspiration for writing songs develops from the music itself, but the lyrics are just as important to him, especially as a "lover of the English language."
"I think it's a kind of poetry," he says of his music, "like what I feel is good literature. In many ways, it's what got me into teaching. It really complements the music. There's something quite extraordinary in making something out of nothing."
Hughes, 33, says the band appealed to him because he was interested in acoustic pop-rock and wanted to work as a team.
"I really enjoy collaborating with other people," he says. "I've played individually, but I don't get as much satisfaction out of that as with a group."
He also grew excited about the idea of recording their own album. The band's CD developed out of a demo tape the band created, which grew into a full-length album.
"It was great to do sort of self-production, back-to-basics type of recording," Hughes says.
Williams says the band took about six months to record the album, taking its own time and not having to pay recording fees. Williams did the recording on a 20-year-old analog eight-track recording machine and did all the mixing. The quality probably isn't quite professional, he says, but at least none of his neighbors have ever complained about hearing the music from his house.
He says the group then took out a joint, low-interest credit card to have 1,000 CDs produced by DiscMaker, a Fremont-based company that works with a lot of up-and-coming artists.
The group is doing its own distribution at performances and off its website, and so far it's sold a couple hundred CDs. Williams says they are also thinking of selling into some smaller "mom and pop" record shops that help promote small, local bands.
Getting the King's Head Pub gig was something of a coup for the group, he says. The pub manager prefers to host bands who perform more "covers," or songs originally performed by known artists, which can draw larger crowds. But Williams convinced him that 4 A.M. could draw a good crowd. He adds that the manager was impressed with their Feb. 22 performance.
No one in the group would be opposed to getting an actual recording contract with a label, provided the contract was satisfactory to them. But, for the moment, the musicians are content entertaining themselves and their growing local following. Collosi says her goals for the band are to perform "at the top of our game, to keep growing as people and to keep collaborating in a positive way."
Hughes says he'll stick with it for as long as he enjoys it.
"For me, the music has got to always be fun," he says. "I do it for pleasure and because it's sort of in you. I'd love to see something come out of what we're doing. For now, I'm really enjoying playing with the band. We're really just kind of getting going."
The band will be playing again March 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. at South First Billiards in San Jose, 420 S. First St. Williams adds that the group is also interested in finding venues in Willow Glen. For more information about the performance, call 408.294.7800. For more information about 4 A.M., visit www.4ammusic.com.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
