Airbus makes short appearance at UCLA

  Airbus Indie band Airbus will play in Westwood Plaza at
noon today. They are on tour in Los Angeles promoting their
follow-up album to "Ghosts."

By Luiza Gevorkyan
Daily Bruin Contributor

At noon today at Westwood Plaza, gleeful female fans will be
screaming “Nick!” “James!” and
“Chris!” No, this is not just another boy band. This is
Airbus ““ indie and straight out of Bristol.

The five-year-old English band is ending the last leg of its
tour at the Viper Room this June, but first it will make an
appearance at UCLA to play a 45 minute set.

Nick “Damage”Â Davidge and James Childs are the
band’s frontmen, lead vocals/guitarist and lead guitarist
respectively, supported by bassist Sargon Dooman and drummer Chris
Fielden.

With the exception of Dooman, the members of Airbus are
long-time friends. They all arrived together in Los Angeles late
last year for the first time as a band.

It may seem that the move was aimed to gain more fame or
exposure, but Davidge said otherwise.

“We fancied a different backdrop,” he said in an
interview.

Different backdrop indeed. Incidentally, it’s a town where
everyone and his mother wants to be a rock star. Surely Airbus has
realized through its observations.

“We really like it here,” Davidge said. “A lot
of people are really into music.”

Although the band’s members have known each other since
they were small, growing up in Portishead, England, they are still
fresh meat in the global music scene. It’s not too bad,
however, since some bands wait decades to be discovered.

But Airbus is not waiting for things to happen to it. Its
members have gained a lot of ground in the last year, when they
started putting themselves out on the scene, touring, experimenting
in the studio and completing their debut album,
“Ghosts.”

For those still wondering what kind of band Airbus is, it is
comparable to other indie bands such as Karate, Sunny Day Real
Estate, The Get Up Kids, and once a long time ago, even
Radiohead.

This genre’s popularity is evident, and it was a major
undercurrent during the bubble-gum ’80s. “Indie”
is short for independent, meaning that it is free from commercial
restraints and what Childs calls “musical
prostitution,” although Airbus claims that it is one way it
makes money, from record sales back in England.

The band’s debut album, “Ghosts,” was released
in 2000 and it is developing its next, more evolved, concoction
soon. The new album will probably be distributed on the Internet
before it is sold, which is how the last album was handled.

“The first album is a reflection of what was going on
around that time,” Davidge said. “It’s got lots
of atmosphere. It’s dark. The new one is more up.”

“Ghosts” is a soulful collection of songs that
almost always has a melancholic acoustic sound to it, with slight
experimentation, most resembling the band Karate. Davidge, the
co-writer of the band’s music, along with Childs, explained
the probable reason for this.

“I always see a little sadness to life,” Davidge
said. “Even when I’m happy, I still sometimes feel like
there’s a sadness to this stuff. I can’t think of why
that is. I’ve always thought about it a lot, but I’ve
always been this way since I was a kid.”

“If we could explain it, it wouldn’t be real,”
he continued.

The rawness and confessional style of the music, coupled with
its quasi-emotional lyrics, places Airbus in a genre it is
comfortable in, because there is room for change. It also creates
an empathetic mood.

“There are a lot of songs where you know what’s
coming next, and that is so boring!” Davidge said.

By having vague lyrics, the group wants listeners to internalize
and personalize the music.

“In those songs, we’re trying to get across a point
that everyone can relate to,” he explained.
“We’re trying to be powerful without being
miserable.”

Probably the most memorable piece of “Ghosts,” a
30-second demo of which can be heard on Airbus’ Web site
www.airbusmusic.com, is “Gravity.” In fact, it was the
strength of that song that convinced BMG to publish the
band’s next album.

It starts out very personal and acoustic, and then, with a
deafening electric release, it adds a whole new dimension to the
sound scope. It fluctuates maniacally between the sane and the
insane, the quietly desperate, and the empowered.

Airbus’ style was influenced by many people, but the scope
of influence seems to encompass Childs’ admiration of
guitarists Jimmy Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and Davidge’s
eclectic influences, Nick Drake, Blur and Pink Floyd.

The group’s songs, however, are original and are not a
product of a formal musical background.

“I have a poster,” Davidge joked, citing it as the
source of his only musical knowledge, “with some musical
notes on it, or something to that effect. Surely, then, it
doesn’t take a music major to make music.”

So where do the members of Airbus see themselves in the future?
Which band would they love to impress and surpass?

“I don’t know, U2?” Childs said without giving
the question much thought. “I don’t know, we’re
not rock stars yet.”

MUSIC: Airbus performs today at noon at
Westwood Plaza.