Under Exile to perform at Levitt AMP series
By Steven Hughes
Sun Correspondent
The Levitt AMP Gallup Music Series is celebrating its fifth anniversary with its next line up of 10 free family-friendly performances throughout the summer season.
“We aim to feature a diverse range of genres, not just typical music commonly found in Gallup,” Michael Bulloch, executive director for the Gallup MainStreet Arts & Cultural District, said.
This year’s show features music from indie rock to R&B, and some metal performances.
In tandem with the music series, the Sun will produce Q&As that give a glimpse of the minds of these performers.
THE JULY 19 PERFORMANCE
Under Exile will perform for the first time at the Levitt AMP Gallup Music Series at 7 pm on July 19 at the Courthouse Square Plaza. Franklin Yazzie, the vocalist for the Navajo metal band, said they’re excited to connect with a large audience at a free event.
Their upcoming Gallup performance comes after the group did a live recording session with Rio Grande Studios in Albuquerque, recording 11 songs that maintained the required aggressive energy the metal genre is iconic for. The videos of the recordings are getting uploaded to the band’s YouTube channel with the hopes listeners will appreciate seeing the raw and honest sound they produced in the studio.
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Gallup Sun: What are you hoping to achieve from your Gallup performance?
Yazzie: “We play pretty much every show the same. It doesn’t matter. Our goal is to express the art and music we’ve created in the way we want to. It’s almost like people enjoy that authenticity more. We just want to have a good time with the music and the people.”
Gallup Sun: What is your goal as a group?
Yazzie: “Playing into my last answer, we want to create music we’d listen to. We want to express whatever creative energy we have as a collective and individually. I can’t say that we’re doing anything with career moves in mind, not saying that wouldn’t be cool. We’re creating art for ourselves and music for ourselves. We put it out there for anyone to enjoy.”
Gallup Sun: Why did you think you’d garner such a listenership?
Yazzie: “We didn’t know anyone would listen. The way this new era of what we’re doing came about is because the guys got back in contact with our original drummer, Wyatt Billie. They started jamming. We played one-off shows or had Wyatt as a guest. Eventually, he reacted back to us and said, ‘Hey, I want to get back in this drumming thing,’ because he hadn’t played drums for five or six years before that. They wrote music and sent ideas around. I enjoyed everything.
For four or five years after we went on an unannounced hiatus, I became a business owner. I reached a different point in my life where I can do personal endeavors. I told the guys ‘If you guys want to do something with this, then let’s plan something with it.’
As a band, I love our creative energy because we believe in it. I think that resonates with people. They see the desire that we have to do this for ourselves. Whatever comes after that is just a byproduct of that.”
Gallup Sun: When did you last learn something that improved your musicianship?
Yazzie: “Within the past year or so. Working with Erik [Jensen], he’s more of a producer than a recording engineer. What Erik does, he’s a musician himself and played in a fairly large band. He does help with the song structure, and helps with composing some of the production or the backing track effect in the background of the music.
We don’t have a choir behind us, but he adds those effects. For us to do that live, we have to run those tracks or back track off a computer, and our drummer has to play with a metronome. That was the most recent technical thing we’ve done, figuring out our set so that we can do it with the computer, and the audience is still getting an authentic experience. Our drummer had to get it tight by playing with the metronome. We had to get tight with playing as a group with him and knowing when those effects were playing.
Now that’s in place, we’ve been thinking about getting a light show so that we can have that designed with our music, rather than having a lighting director. It’s just one more technical but necessary thing to elevate our live shows.”
Gallup Sun: What’s your next project?
Yazzie: “We have a four to five song EP we’re working on. We also have some video projects around that too. That’s the biggest thing we’re working on right now.”
For more information about the upcoming performance, email Bulloch at director@gallupmainstreet.org.
Follow Under Exile on Instagram at underexile_.
