Though there are frequent misconceptions about their name, All We Seabees' approach to music is straightforward and plain.
"[Our band's name is] hard to say to someone in a loud bar at one in the morning," jokes guitarist/banjoist David Swartout.
Naming their band after the Navy's Construction Battalions (CBs) has provided All We Seabees with some unusual and unexpected opportunities to perform.
Backstage before their show at the Exit/In, bassist Zach Powers says the band was once asked to play in California for Vietnam veterans.
Though they may not construct military bases or pave airstrips, the Seabees have paved their way as indie-folk rockers with the release of their third album MK Ultra last fall on Cephalopod Records.
MK Ultra was an experience involving a multitude of firsts because it was the band's first album released on a record label and recorded in a studio.
Zachary Gresham from the indie trio Umbrella Tree recorded the album at Scoliosis the Studio in Kingston Springs, Tenn. It was then mastered at Nashville's recording studio Battle Tapes in 2008.
The members of All We Seabees agree that of all their previous recordings, the LP MK Ultra is the "most full" because of the addition of studio effects. With a proper studio recording, keyboardist and percussionist Aaron Irons says the band had access to "more gadgets," which created a more polished and intricate sound compared their last two endeavors.
Their first album, Anne the Snake, was released in 2007. It has a rustic folk element that reflects part of the Nashville sound yet does not attempt to sever their ties to Michigan.
Guitarist and lead vocalist Bryan Fox says he did not move to Tennessee to try and write country music like so many others but rather to question "fake southern roots" like in the band's song "Bruin Hunt."
Anne the Snake is mostly distinguished by variety. Fox goes Sufjan Stevens with "All Beds Quiet," with the banjo laying the base beneath soft vocals, but picks up the pace with songs like "Ferrah Flame" and "Cork County." The melodies are innovative enough for a first album with no studio enhancement. By March of the following year, All We Seabees had one-upped their first endeavor with early 2008's EP Lady Alaska.
Like the band's the previous album, the EP was a DIY product recorded in their homes in East Nashville over the course of a few days. It was mixed and then released in Murfreesboro, slowing down the revved-up folk of Anne the Snake and toying with a sound that sometimes borders on country without losing the quirkiness that distinguished the first album.
MK Ultra is All We Seabees' strongest and most experimental effort with the aid of studio effects, which the Seabees claim have made the greatest difference between MK Ultra and their other albums.
Though lyrically it is reminiscent of Anne the Snake and Lady Alaska, MK Ultra shies away from folk sounds. It embraces the availability of keys and pedals in the studio on songs with a faint electronic edge, like in the songs "Animarch" and "Hoi Polloi."
Probably among the best songs on the album are the lullaby "Bankers on Coke" with its melodic guitar riff and the high energy "Alt. Country" in which Fox again addresses moving to the South with a new aggressiveness.
Right now, All We Seabees is enjoying performing songs from a fresh album and on Feb. 27, the band will make another appearance at Wall Street to bring some of MK Ultra to Murfreesboro.
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