Five friends joined together a year ago to create what would eventually become their very own jam rock band. All students of Fairfield University, they have played everywhere in town, from our very own Levee and Stagstock to the beach and local restaurant and bar, Bravo’s. Who are they? Proud. JonnieProud.
JonnieProud consists of Mike Falzone ’06 on guitar and vocals, Chris Pastore ’06 on bass, Steve Tyburski ’06 on drums, Steve Sennett ’06 on the sax and bongos, and Tim O’Conner ’05 on guitar, and they are Fairfield University’s latest local wonder.
Falzone started JonnieProud seven years ago, frequently performing at various open mic nights around Connecticut. He played by himself for years, using a hip-hop drum machine to record most of his music. These solo performances led to the eventual online release of his first project “Acoustically,” a collection of live tracks mixed together with solo studio songs.
Over the years, Falzone expanded, picking up a band to play the instruments he had been trying to simulate himself. Many different members came and went in the long process of assembling a compatible group that would work.
“We’ve gone through more members than Destiny’s Child,” he said, counting up to five people who joined and left the band before the current JonnieProud was assembled. During their awkward stage of member hopping, JonnieProud released its first official album entitled “Classic Spaghetti Oh Explosions.”
With the newly formed JonnieProud, Falzone decided it was time to elaborate on the acoustic sound he was accustomed to.
“For so long, it’s been only acoustic, but it’s very limiting,” he said.
The change of style came about when Tyburski, the drummer, made a suggestion to Falzone about the band’s potential. Playing different beats alongside the band’s preconceived guitar riffs, Tyburski helped put a completely different spin to JonnieProud’s music while also moving them closer towards the jam rock scene.
According to Falzone, the band’s new sound is hard to pinpoint.
“We don’t try to fit any description, we just write what feels right,” he said.
JonnieProud has recently been known to play anything from rap to hard rock. Falzone’s influences are just as eclectic, and he names such artists as Incubus, Ben Harper and rock/pop legends The Beatles.
With their enhanced style, JonnieProud has been recently performing and promoting their latest release, “Live from Stagstock.” The CD contains only five tracks but exudes a promising 32 minutes of material from their latest appearance at Fairfield University’s Stagstock in September.
“I fell in love with our new sound right away and if they [the fans] came to a show, I didn’t want to sell them a CD of acoustic music. I wanted to sell them what they just heard,” Falzone said.
And the live CD does just that. The band displays a plethora of sounds from the bass driven, hip-hop influenced “Flexible Shank Grape Jam” to the groovy rock track, “Help 2Morrow.”
Although hard to categorize, bassist Chris Pastore assures that “it’s not cry-baby music and it’s not poetic…It’s [simply] college music by college kids, for college kids.”
No future dates have been reported as of yet, but JonnieProud is hoping to play more gigs soon. For more information about the band, music, or shows, check out JonnieProud.com.
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