On a recent Sunday morning I met up with Houston’s Committeemen at their East Downtown rehearsal space; well I actually met up with two members of the band, DJ Gilmore-Innis who plays guitar and is the singer, and Ken Dannelley, veteran drummer. Bassist Matt Kast joined in on the conversation via his cellphone and I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to speak with lead guitarist Graham Bell who was traveling at the time.
The band came to my attention from Dannelley who I first met years ago when he was the drummer for The Escatones; The Escatones have now morphed into what is today called The Nerve-Curlers with Dannelley still on drums. Amazingly, Dannelley also plays with a third band here in Houston called Cornish Game Hen; I’ve been covering all of Dannelley’s activities as a drummer in the music scene here in Houston so now I come to his band called Committeemen.
“Ken and I met on Craigslist in I think 2021 in recovery from the pandemic, we both had had bands that kind of stopped playing because of the pandemic and so we were both looking to start something new,” explains Gilmore-Innis. “I think we started the band kind of wanting to have more of a post-punk sound, that’s kind of the ad Ken put up and that’s what I responded to and we had a bunch of bands in common that we liked and it just kind of grew as we gained members to be a little more-a lot of genres more than just post-punk, I definitely think you hear some of that in there but also some kind of 90s influence and definitely like ’70s punk rock influence.”
Gilmore-Innis and Dannelley were initially having some trouble recruiting a bass player so the two of them recorded a demo of five songs in their rehearsal space which was released on April 28, 2022 so local musicians could hear what the band was aiming for.
“Soon as they have an idea of what you sound like you’re gonna get-I mean some people just see bass guitarist wanted and they don’t even bother reading the ad,” says Dannelley. “When they hear it then you’re out of excuses you either like this or you don’t, if you don’t, don’t show up, you know?”
Committeemen also recorded an EP of six songs which was released on November 3, 2023 according to their Bandcamp page; I noticed on the credits that the bass player and lead guitarist who played on that are no longer with the band;Chris Spurgin and Richard Giraldi, respectively.
“Both moved out of state due to family committments.” expains Dannelley. “We got/get along with them.” Curent bass player Kast designed the cover art; check out the music here.
“This March is probably our busiest month as a band, we have three gigs this month and we actually just got some masters for a new single that we recorded and we’re going to hopefully put that out,” says Gilmore-Innis. ” And then I think because we have new members I think we want to focus on writing a little bit and kind of seeing what this new four-piece is going to sound like, you know what we can come up with. I’m excited about that, where it goes from here.”
Gilmore-Innis has been the primary songwriter for the band up to this point but he adds that Kast has definitely brought his own flavor and influence to the band as well as Bell who has not as much of a punk rock background but more indie rock and shoegaze which will evolve the sound of Committeemen.
“DJ comes to the table with an idea or riff and then it becomes like a very collaborative process where we’ll start writing lines, bass part to that riff, Graham will put a little something over it and we just kind of like write in the room,” says Kast. “And then it feels like songs just kind of like make themselves at that point so it works very well when we’re starting to write.”
Being kind of ignorant about what the role of a bass player in a band exactly is I asked Kast to explain it to me as a non-musician.
‘Yeah I’d say the whole point is to just bring that low end and kind of round out the sound because I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a band with just guitar players but it just doesn’t have that same energy or same power when the bass and drums are in sync, it just has that sort of like powerful sound that you know, that makes you kind of like you want to start moving your body a little bit. So I think it has that role but I think in a lot of post-punk you have some really interesting bass parts that kind of can be sometimes like a counter- melody to what’s going on but I think overall it’s like feeling out the sound.”
“All of the members of the band just having ideas about the arrangement and interesting things to do in the song too, it’s just like another perspective to help make the song just not like a vision of mine but kind of a vision of ours, something that’s a bit of all of us,” adds Gilmore-Innis.
“I kind of listen to it, I’m trying to play to the tune, I’ll be honest with you my first five years of drumming I didn’t know what a bass guitarist did,” says Dannelley. “I knew it was me and my friends and whoever showed up last got stuck with the Hofner copy and finally about five years in ‘oh I’m supposed to be listening to that guy and playing with him it might be a good idea.’ Yeah just kind of what works for each song and try to make this drum part interesting without cluttering up the sound. I don’t want to overplay but I also don’t want to be a metronome because I got a drum machine back here I could just loop it and stay home and read. It’s gotta provide some energy but it’s also should be interesting and to the song, basically.”
Gilmore-Innis adds that the song “Punching Bag” that was recorded for the EP has changed with the addition of Kast on bass in that the band added a part to it, all in sync together added an accent on there that wasn’t there in the beginning but was added as the song evolved with the new members in the band.
You might be wondering what is the story behind the name of the band,Committeemen; I certainly was.
“Actually I have a friend that works at the Houston Livestock Show And Rodeo, he does IT for the whole kit and caboodle and they have different committees for the different parts of the rodeo and he got us into one of the barbecue tents and he had this cool badge hanging around his neck and it said committeemen or committeeman I guess for the IT department and I thought it was cool because Ken and I were playing around trying to come up with a name kind of empty and I was I like it.”
“I think we kind of liked that it maybe implies a little of like-we talked about some things slightly political, kind of like what it’s like to live nowadays and you know things are kind of run by businesses and men so Committeemen to us I think it kind of felt appropriate to some of the things we were talking about.”
“It’s a very circa now name,” chimes in Dannelley.
I had to chime in myself and ask Dannelley how he can keep up with all of the songs he plays drums to being in three diferent bands.
“Every band is a different proposition, DJ writes in a different style than say Connor(Pursell) or (Doktor)Shoen or Tyler(Jans) so I just-when I’m hearing him play it’s like different folders so it’s like that’s this guy’s so I couldn’t see myself confusing- I think there’s kind of some overlap like if it works but no it’s not hard, they’re just different styles requiring slightly different drum parts.”
Gilmore-Innis is very enthusiastic about the Houston music scene.
“I think it’s exploding. I moved here in 2019 so it hasn’t been that long so obviously I have a short kind of time window but when I first moved to Houston on a Friday and Saturday night there would be weekends where there was kind of nothing going on and now like this last weekend when we played there was-every venue had a show, and a good show and the amount of bands that are coming up and really good bands, bands that are doing things like going on tours and I hope that’s just going to drive more mid, smaller mid-level bands to make Houston a stop between Dallas and Austin cause we get skipped and it sucks.”
I certainly hope so as well; I’ll take this opportunity to note that both Neil Young and Bob Dylan are skipping Houston on their upcoming tours while playing Dallas and Austin and that is a tragedy for me and many others here who are big fans of both. Dannelley did point out to me that the promoters know that Houston people will travel to Austin to see a show but Austin folks won’t travel to Houston to see a show. It’s just so bewildering to me that they can’t or won’t play in Houston.
Committeemen did give a shout out to local bands Primaries and True To Form as a couple of their favorites; Dannelley calls Primaries astonishingly good and Kast agrees, calling them great and super-talented, while Gilmore-Innis says the punk/indie band blows him away everytime he sees them. True To Form is doing the shoegaze emo alternative thing and Gilmore-Innis describes them as being awesome and mentions he has seen them several times; so go support these local bands folks.
And also support Committeemen, of course.
“I think we put on a pretty good show we have a lot of energy and you know we’re always down to hang out and talk to people, like this last show we had we just wanted people to hang out and have a good time,” concludes Gilmore-Innis. “It’s about getting out of your house and seeing music and getting together with other people that also left their house to go see some random people play their guitars. We’re not doing this for any other reason than that we really love music and just hanging out.”
“I think we don’t have any delusions of world tours or international fame or anything like that but like DJ is saying it’s just really awesome to come together and play and if there’s some people, like a handful of people that want to see us do it than that’s awesome,” says Kast. “We just do it because we love playing and it’s cool to see people actually come out and listen to us and say afterwards, ‘man you guys are awesome I want to buy a sticker you’ve made enough of an impact that I want to have some representation of you in my life’ so yeah it’s just super fun.”
“Come see us and if you don’t come see us, form a band and we’ll come see you,” concludes Dannelley.
Committeemen performs this Saturday, March 2 at 7 p.m. at Eighteen Ten Ojeman, 1810 Ojeman with Rooftop Boxer, Mind Mine, and As We Shiver.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
