Musician Dustin Galish sat outside the Happy Badger on a sunny afternoon. The cars zoomed by on North Main Street as he sipped his cup of coffee.
“Music has always been a part of my life,” Galish said. “I played sports and went to college, but music has always been there. With me it was like, ‘I might as well try it.’”
Galish graduated with a degree in Visual Communication Technology from the University in 2005 and went on to form his band Tree No Leaves in 2007. The pop psychedelic and electronic experimental band started as a duo, but has made its way to a four piece consisting of drums, bass, guitar and keyboard.
Tree No Leaves has 22 online releases with more than 100 songs, consisting of poetry-based lyrics without any traditional song structure such as a verse, chorus and bridge, one aspect Galish said his band stands for.
“We didn’t have lyrics until after two years into writing music,” Galish said. “A lot of the lyrics are from writing poems. You can take on whatever meaning you want. It’s not very direct.”
Galish said the band’s latest EP “Blind Tigers” will be the first release the members will support by distributing songs to online blogs and playing shows in and out of state, the first of many starting Friday night at Howard’s Club H.
“It’s the kind of album I’ve always wanted to make,” Galish said. “There’s some kind of elements like dance and upbeat stuff too. There’s singing on every track and is the most pop oriented music we’ve ever written.”
“Blind Tigers” was produced and mixed by Chris Cavera at Terra Recording Studio at Terra Community College this past summer. Cavera has worked at the college for 10 years as the recording studio coordinator and knew Galish before from when he worked with Cavera’s band Killbot Zero by making videos. Cavera said the members were professional.
“We let the band play just to get comfortable in the space on the first day in the studio,” Cavera said. “The second day they were really easy to work with and the whole project was great. Beginning to end was fantastic.”
The band is known for its artwork, not only in the videos they make, but for every piece of cover art. Artist and illustrator Will Santino has been making artwork for Tree No Leaves for two years. He said Galish originally reached out without knowing him and asked him to make art for the band.
“I met up with him and really listened to his music and talked about it and came up with a few different ideas,” Santino said. “He gives me a lot of freedom to do whatever I want. I usually listen to the music while I’m making the art and it’s kind of a surprise in the end when I show him what I came up with and it’s fun to do.”
As Galish finished his coffee, he thought about the band’s show at Howard’s with supporting acts such as Aquatic Fox Trio, Tony Papa and He-Chaw Frunk.
“In the end we just want people to listen to our music,” Galish said. “That’s why I make music is to give back. We want to inspire our listeners to paint something or write a poem themselves.”
People are able to listen to Tree No leaves at treenoleaves.com and download all releases for free.
