![]() ![]() Sergio brought friend and keyboardist Parrish Yaw on board, and they began playing their off-kilter pop with a slacker vibe, Hawaiian shirts and coordinated moves. The three original members-Matt Pelham on guitar and vocals, Don Sergio on guitar and Roger Dabbs on bass-came to Murfreesboro in the mid-’90s, where they met drummer Jason Taylor. The Features formed as middle-schoolers in Sparta, Tenn., a typically homogenous small Southern town about 15 miles outside of Cookeville that boasts bluegrass picker Lester Flatt as its musical calling card. Though they’ve arguably had luck-songs with as much staying power as the fans they attract-it’s perseverance that has kept the band charging forward, through more than 10 years, two botched record deals, two lineup changes, three unreleased albums and two unexpected bundles of joy. And the ones who do often talk of their stars aligning just right, as though some higher power were at hand. That a band like The Features bypassed these roadblocks-they didn’t tour much, weren’t the types to stump for the cause and, after a decade together, hadn’t even released a full-length-is a feat in itself. Maybe you’re over 25, or your live show’s not that exciting. Or hey, you’re road warriors with great tunes and star appeal, but your songs don’t test well with the radio demographic. How’s your web presence these days? We don’t see that X factor. Or if you’ve spanned the globe in a shitty van on a 3-dollar per diem, your image isn’t marketable. If you have great songs, you haven’t toured enough. Just ask anybody courting label attention what it takes to score the elusive record deal, and they’ll give you a slew of contradictory messages about the equation for success. Majors drop bands like most of us drop change in a tip jar, and they’ve practically turned career crushing into an art form. Lady luck gives with one hand and takes away with the other. In the music industry, success is a crapshoot. Label drops band for not selling enough records. It’s certainly a horror story we’ve heard before: band signs record deal, doesn’t get promoted. But The Features dug in their heels and opted not to take the money and run. Artists must be shrewd businesspeople always looking for the next promotional opportunity, whether it’s ringtones, clothing lines or product endorsements, and commercial placement has both launched new careers and salvaged old ones. In an age of MySpace, digital downloads and band branding, the formula for success is murkier than ever, and musicians are advised not to be too picky about who signs their paychecks. The song? The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.”įrom the cheap seats, it looked like the band might have shot themselves in the foot. ![]() The band had refused to cover a song for a commercial. Sparking weeks of message-board rants and raves, the cause for the drop split their loyal following along the increasingly blurred line between art and commerce. So when news spread that the band were dropped in just under a year, fans were shocked. Immensely likable and talented, they were shoo-ins for local band most likely to succeed. They’d appeared on the Murfreesboro scene a decade earlier with an invigorating, quirky pop sound that lent itself to easy crowd participation with rowdy sing-alongs and whimsical handclaps. When The Features signed to Universal Records in 2004, no one was surprised. ![]()
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