The TwistOffs by Kevin G. Brosien photography by Tanya Ackerman and Kevin G. Brosien   The TwistOffs have been weaving their musical web over Kent for nearly 10 years. Over the past four years, they have begun to cover all of North America with their silky strands of sound. They tour the country in their customized yellow Bluebird school bus called "Betty," performing 200 shows a year. This is not the story of success. Although the TwistOffs signed a three-record contract with Sol 3 Records in New York City, it is a small label - one they hope will catapult them into rock 'n' roll financial security, if there is such a thing. Right now, though, they continue roaming the country in an unreliable bus, running their own affairs. This is the story of hard work and tenacity. If you want to know how hard it can be to have a touring band, ask a TwistOff. If you want to know how much fun it can be, ask a TwistOff. If you want to know how stinky it can get, ask a TwistOff. You'll probably get more than you bargained for. The founding father of the TwistOffs is a Kent native, 29-year-old Erik Walter. His 6-foot-1-inch frame is thinned from 10 years of jumping around on stage, a lifetime of walking around Kent and malnutrition incurred during the band's cross-country tours. He has spent the past 10 years bringing his adolescent dreams to fruition. He has been honing the band for this precise moment. Touring in a band was what Walter wanted to do ever since he started playing the electric guitar. In high school, Walter, Phil Adamek and Greg Schidlowski, all original members of the TwistOffs, used to hide their bikes in the bushes and sneak into JB's. The underage trio watched numerous bands rock the joint and roll out of town. "I always wanted to go on tour like the guys I saw at JB's, dirty and stumbling out of a '71 Ford van," Walter says. Walter's musical inspiration began at home with his parents, Tom and Susan Walter. "My father played piano and spoke French," Walter says. "He didn't do it all the time, but after a few drinks, that side of him came out. He played casually, mostly ragtime versions of non-ragtime songs. Interpretive, I guess you would call it." Walter now slides into interpretive versions of songs from pop icons like Madonna and Hootie and the Blowfish during the TwistOffs' shows. Walter took piano lessons for less than a year when he was in kindergarten. He credits his father for these early music lessons. "That and the fact that we had a piano," Walter says. His next formal music education came in the form of group folk guitar lessons while he attended St. Patrick's Elementary School. "It was this hippy-esque type guy teaching a bunch of kids folk versions of rock numbers like "Come Together" and "Stairway to Heaven" and Kiss and Black Sabbath songs," Walter said. "To this day, I still come across those old blue mimeographed copies of chords with lyrics written under them and it scares me to think I learned this stuff as a kid." Walter continued these lessons for two years and then began playing in the Folk Mass Ensemble at St. Patrick's Church. He played in the church group until one day at the age of 13, when he got in a fight with a nun in the group. The argument was over which one of them was out of tune. "We were probably both out of tune," Walter recalls, "but she was farther out of tune than me." After that experience, Walter did not touch the guitar for two years. Then, in high school he started buying Sex Pistols records, got an electric guitar and started the garage band that would become the TwistOffs. He took lessons briefly from Ken Leonard at Woodsy's Music and later took Jazz Ensemble at Kent State with Chas Baker. "I got a 'C' out of mercy," says Walter about the Jazz Ensemble. "My sense of humor and sense of time were not appreciated." In the spring of 1990, the TwistOffs began touring more extensively. The rigors of touring and missing classes forced Walter to drop out of college. "My classwork may have been suffering," Walter says, smirking. "I always figured I'd go back to school if things didn't work out." A leaflet at a recent New Jersey show called the TwistOffs music "quirky pop alternative." Eclectic circus rock provides a better picture. All of their songs are upbeat and have been known to induce happy feet. Drums, a bass, two guitars and a three-piece horn section blast out big band harmonies. The band is animated to say the least. Seeing a TwistOffs show is akin to watching popcorn pop in the bottom of a greasy pan. The kernels start dancing around as they get agitated by the heat. Then blammo, they start going off one by one. Al Mothersbaugh, the trombone player, jumps around the stage like a little lost boy who ran out of Ritalin. He jumps off the stage and thrashes among the crowd. He climbs anything and hangs from rafters. Andy Stephan, the saxophone player, makes a strong case for "most disturbed of the bunch." He has developed a strange habit of putting things in his mouth. He'll actually go into the crowd, find some trash and shove it in. Though not immune to bouts of weirdness, Brian Fricky, the trumpet player, is the most mild mannered member of the horn section. On stage he is Stephan and Mothersbaugh's victim of cruelty. They don't hate each other. Heck, Fricky and Stephan have been kissing at least once a show for over a year. Beer is dumped on Fricky's head and squirted into his crotch during his solos. During a show at Ozeez (now JB's) a couple years ago, he was accidentally set aflame. It happened during what used to be a TwistOff ritual of blowing a ball of fire. Walter usually blows the 151 rum, creating a ball of fire. But this night, Walter and Mothersbaugh both grabbed a shot. They coated the back of a guitar with the rum and blew a double fireball, igniting the guitar and Fricky who was holding it. The band, seeing a fellow member in peril, promptly doused him with soda, beer and pitchers of water. "I didn't actually know what happened," Fricky says. "I felt heat and saw everybody looking at me with a look of fright." After finishing the song, Fricky went to the hospital, where he got smeared with ointment. He made the gig in Youngstown the next night with minor burns and one eyebrow. Fricky plays on unfazed. Pat Drouin, on lead guitar, is usually too busy playing to get involved in many antics. Drouin related the story of his first meeting with Walter at Mother's Junction (now Ray's upstairs) in Kent. "Al introduced me to Erik, and before he even said anything, he hit me in the head," Drouin says. "I grabbed him by the shoulders and we went down on the ground brawling. When we were done, we got up and Erik said, 'He'll do.'" Dustin Elliott is the bass player and the newest member of the band. He is quickly finding his niche in the band and on the bus while learning all the songs. Gregg Garlock, the drummer, says he enjoys being behind the scenes. You can barely see him behind his cymbals and all the commotion on stage. When he joined the band three years ago, he quit his full time job with benefits. "When my girlfriend found out I was dissing it all for the band, she kicked me out," Garlock says. He spent some time living in the band's practice space during his early days as a TwistOff. When performing, Walter positions himself at center stage. He sings the majority of the songs and plays his Fender Stratocaster slung low on his hip. "Walt has an uncanny ability to play and sing," Stephan says. "Have you ever watched him play? It's not all bar chords and strumming. That fucker's pretty busy with his fingers while he's singing all those lyrics." While singing, Walter's head often tilts to the right. He sinks down to his knees and sings up to the microphone as if trying to muster something up from the bottom of his soul. He sings the lyrics with a biting voice as unique as the sound of the band. He sings about things that would make his grandmother cringe with a barely visible smirk on his face. An ornery smirk that his girlfriend, Maria Burr, says is there for a reason. "He always seems to have something up his sleeve," Burr says. "You never know what's going to happen with Erik around." Walter writes most of the songs. His creative process is disjointed at best. All of the lyrics he sings are stored in his head. He never puts them on paper unless they are to go in the liner notes of an album. He does not write poetry or much of anything else. His lyrics seem to come out of some kind of mental vortex. "Sometimes I'll forget something I was singing or playing in a song, then I'll use something a little bit different. Later I'll forget that and remember chunks that I forgot before. Eventually, I end up with a complete song," Walter says. From here, the songs go to the band for musical processing by something Fricky calls, "The Fill The Bucket Theory." "Erik comes in with the rhythm and the lyrics and we all add to that," Fricky says. "We all dump what we have into the bucket." Mothersbaugh says Walter doesn't title his songs. He may not have a title until the song is recorded and a name is needed to put on the album jacket. "We delayed the release of our last CD ("Cup of Fish"­since re-released by Sol 3) a month because we couldn't come up with a title for the album," Mothersbaugh says. Greg Schidlowski describes Walter as, "very bright, witty and funny. He has a keen ability to observe the absurdity in life." This absurdity can be heard in the lyrics of many of the TwistOffs' songs like "Falsetto Detective" and "Love Cowboy." The latter has become something of an anthem of the band, complete with Village People-like arm gestures. It is a rousing number with a groovy vamp that has incited drunken minions to fisticuffs, like on a Feb. 7, 1997, show in Laurence Harbor, N.J. Signing the record contract hasn't changed Walter. He and his girlfriend are still remodeling their new house by themselves. He still works his day job at Woodsy's Music and he still doesn't own a car. Walter is committed. He has been dating Burr for nine years. He's worked at Woodsy's for 11 years. The TwistOffs is the only band Walter has ever played in and it has been together for 10 years. Mothersbaugh says Burr is an influential person in Walter's life. "I was listening to Donovan (Leitch) on Howard Stern the other day and he was talking about his muse. Erik has a muse. It's Maria. Listen closely to the lyrics of the songs. They're all about Maria and Kent." As for not having a car, Burr says Walter is not afraid of driving, "he just hasn't taken the time to stop and buy a car since his 16th birthday." She says he is an avid skateboarder, pedestrian and unicyclist, "Whatever it takes to get him where he's going." Along with their extensive touring, the TwistOffs have recorded three albums ("Make Me Laugh," "Live in Ohio" and "Cup of Fish"). They run almost all of their own marketing and sales. Sol 3 has just taken over distribution of "Cup of Fish" and its hand is just beginning to be seen in promotion. In October of 1996, the band played its 3,000th show. "For the past four years its (the band) been a business," says Walter. "I'm doing it more for accomplishment now than the art. You can do art at home. I look at it as a challenge with one hell of a fringe benefits package." Some of the fringe benefits are free beer when they play and being able to do what they enjoy and having other people enjoy it, too. Walter says that going on tour with the TwistOffs is like going on an expedition. Betty, the band's bus, breaks down frequently. There is a hole in the hood where the fan shot through, and the left front headlight is held on with medical tape. On one tour in New Mexico, the band put up the bus as collateral for a $5,000 loan so they could buy a new engine for it, rent trucks to get home and fly Walter, Burr and Garlock back to New Mexico to pick it up. The old engine blew up. The band eats, sleeps and cooks on the bus. Sometimes they will go to a campground if they have a day or two between shows. They rarely stay in hotels because of the cost. Mothersbaugh says that when Walter is on tour, "He is like the kid on the after-school special whose parents leave. They end up living for two weeks in an empty house doing what they want, not bathing and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast." "We get hotels when we smell so bad we must shower," Walter says, "unless they are provided for us, which is few and far between." The night after the Laurence Harbor show, the TwistOffs had a gig in New York City. That afternoon, Scott Cohen, the president of Sol 3 Records, invited them to his apartment to take showers before a photo shoot for the label. Burr says the band is tolerant of each other. "It drove me crazy driving back from New Mexico with only two of them. I couldn't imagine being on the bus with nine people." Walter admits that living in close quarters with nine men can create some high tension moments. Walter and Mothersbaugh are the only two who have brought the bus to a halt as the result of a fight. The two were arguing about something stupid when, "Al jacked me in the head with the atlas," Walter says. "Damn right I jacked him in the head," Mothersbaugh says. "And it was a milk-soaked New York Times." Mothersbaugh says the argument was, literally, over spilled milk. "It wasn't even my mess and Erik was sitting there drunk and yelling at me about leaving milk out. Spilled milk must have fucked him up as a child or something." Walter then attempted to dump mayonnaise onto Mothersbaugh. "The jar slipped and went out the closed window," Walter says. "We have our moments," Fricky says. "But they end quickly and are forgotten." Now, 10 years after Walter cracked open the cold one that would become the name of his band, his tenacity seems to be paying off. The TwistOffs didn't just go with the first label that offered them a deal. "We got a really cool developmental deal," Fricky says. "They're (Sol 3) not just trying to cash in on us. They're trying to develop us." Scott Cohen, president of Sol 3 Records, is excited to take the TwistOffs under Sol 3's wing. His first impressions of the band were positive. "I got a copy of their album, "Make Me Laugh." I don't think we even made it through the first song. That opening horn riff..." Cohen dropped off as if listening to it in his head and then chimed back in, "We knew we wanted 'em." The TwistOffs first three albums were produced by the band with extra input by Walter because he knows how to work the equipment as a result of his job at Woodsy's Music running sound for live bands in the area. Walter isn't worried about turning the band's control over to someone else. "The guy produced Blondie! I can't wait to work with him to see what a producer actually does," Walter says. Walter's hopes for the next stage of his career seem restrained. With his band on the cusp of stardom, he hasn't changed and he's taking it all in stride. Mothersbaugh is titilated by the prospects that now lie in wait beyond the open door. "I've got something to tell you," he said. "We are going to be a really big band someday." Kevin G. Brosien is a Gemini and a senior magazine journalism major. He is an accomplished singer/song-writer/musician.