Clear Plastic Masks Heads South: My Article for The Crimson White

Clear Plastic Masks heads south

IN CULTURE, MUSIC / BY KINSEY HAYNES / ON FEBRUARY 13, 2014 AT 12:00 AM

After forming in upstate New York in 2011, Clear Plastic Masks have started to push their limits and expand to Nashville.

The band began when singer Andrew Katz, bassist Eddie Duquesne and drummer Charles Garmendia met at a summer camp for troubled teenagers. Guitarist Matt Menold was a counselor who taught guitar and was later asked to join the band.

“Matt wound up staying with us after his wife left him, and we became fast friends and started playing together all the time,” Katz said.

Clear Plastic Masks gets their name from one of their favorite songwriters, Alan Lewandowski.

“We were in Brooklyn, where everybody’s so … cool, and here’s this genius, who, lovingly, just sort of threw it back in their faces,” Katz said.

After getting fed up with the New York scene, moving to Nashville was not a hard decision. They are now becoming one of Nashville’s most hardworking and talked about bands.

“There is just a great mix of people and bands – a higher concentration of peeps that are serious about making a career out of it, and, compared to New York, [they are] less snobby and less saturated,” Katz said.

Touring is essential to any band that is trying to promote their music. One of their favorite aspects of touring is participating in on-the-road shenanigans.

“We dared this Dodge Challenger to race our van at a stop light, and we won because he stalled out,” Katz said.

Katz said the band’s influence is simply “all the good stuff.” Their sound is a mixture of rock, soul, blues, punk and grunge riffs, with a hint of ’50s and ’60s garage-band rock ballads.

The band will be playing for the second time in Tuscaloosa at Green Bar on Thursday with The Timberwolves.

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