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LA electronic rock band, 9ELECTRIC

amps up Gallup

With Interstate 40 running through Gallup, the city definitely gets its fair share of eclectic bands dropping in for a show during tour stops.

Music of different genres, ranging from blues to rock and all in between, brings some high voltage performances to the rugged southwestern area.

One band, 9ELECTRIC did just that this past week.

Based out of Los Angeles, they stopped off at a local venue, the Juggernaut to promote their new album, “The Damaged Ones” Aug. 15. The band is an electronic rock band that consists of lead vocalist Ron “Thunderwood” Underwood, guitarist Mikey Lopez, drummer/programmer Micah Electric, and bassist Ginny Eck.

Prior to the band coming here, I caught wind of them through an email listing of bands to keep an eye out for. Their music can be compared to the likes of Static-X, POWERMAN 5000, and Rammstein.

I spoke with Underwood, and was stoked to find out that the band would be making a stop in Gallup on their tour. The new album under “Another Century Records,” is a hard electronic rhythmic sound, and it showcases the extreme amount of effort the put into each track. It gets your fist pumping high.

I caught up with Underwood outside the venue as they were preparing to go onstage.

Sun: Hey Ron “Thunderwood.” brother how’s it going? And right off the bat, the album is totally killer!

Underwood: It’s going good … going good, aww thank you man.

Sun: Welcome to Gallup.

Underwood: This is awesome! This will probably be the (best) weather on the tour. It’s amazing here. I love it.

Sun: Alright let’s get into it. The album is about a year now, right?

Underwood: Yes, that’s right about a little over a year we released it, and we’re just barely getting behind it touring. This is our first headline run, so we’re stoked!

Sun: Cool, where you guys headed after this?

Underwood: Houston, and right now we’re with “Quor” from San Diego and they are awesome guys! They play a helluva show! Awesome guys to hang out with. Awesome band!

Sun: So, on the phone you told me that you’re producing music videos. That’s got to be totally exciting, tell me about it. How’d you get into it?

Underwood: It started out about the time when we started this band; I realized how important it would be to produce videos for content online. As I was making it, you start to realize … “I could make that part better and this.” I was always looking for a way to make the quality better and better. So, I was going online and doing tutorials and pretty soon I was starting to get this solid work flow. I had other bands asking who did our videos, and I was telling them it was me, and they were asking if I could do their videos … which I thought was cool!

Sun: That’s awesome, and speaking of videos tell me about the song “Beautiful,” and the concept behind the video you’ve talked about.

Underwood: Right, well the concept is about that we are all beautiful in our own way no matter what has happen to you on the outside physically. I got the idea from a friend of mine, Miki Black, who is also in the video. She recently was diagnosed with breast cancer and actually had them removed and replaced with plastic surgery. Well, it’s like telling of her story and how she views beauty in a whole different way.

Sun: Wow that is cool and very deep dude.

Underwood: It really struck a chord with us, and hope it can speak loud to those who may be going through situations like that or another.

Sun: Your sound has flavors of POWERMAN 5000, and even a touch of STATIC-X, especially the songs “Lies” and “Time Bomb.” In fact, it was cool to find out that you actually did a song with the late Wayne Static.

Underwood: You hit it right on the head! Our feel for this album was to expand on what we have seen changing on the music scene, we didn’t want to veer off to far…we wanted a sound that doesn’t take much to produce some awesome songs. It’s just a heavy rhythmic chord over and over again with a punching attitude. Wayne was like that with his songs and I love it! We I mean my band…we all put our two cents in and see what works and just have fun at it. Nothing is wasted and with this album we truly feel that it paid off with the long decisions and times it took to get that right sound…song and feel you know.

Sun: It sure sounds like you did hit it man.

(At this time a passerby comments on what is going on)

Underwood: Hey buddy come check out the show!

Sun: Yeah dude it’s going to be 9ELECTRIC tearing it up soon!

Underwood: Speaking of tearing it up, thank you so much for the support and time for this interview.

Sun: No thank you for doing this and much success on the album. I see you guys going far and have a kick (bleep) night guy!

For more information on 9ELECTRIC visit Facebook/9ELECTRIC.

By Dee Velasco
For the Sun