We really like how Steve Semeraro of San Diego’s The Innocent Bystanders (Steve Berenson, Jessica LaFave, Ben Nieberg, Kath Rogers, Donny Samporna, Semeraro, Kaimi Wenger) describes the members of the smooth pop rock meets big band outfit: “Every member of The Innocent Bystanders is both a little kid and an adult at the same time.” True enough – this batch of passionate sound makers spends their days as lawyers and engineers, but at night…they just might be the best party band in southern California. With two lead singers, the group describes their sound as follows: “Grace Slick, Wild & Innocent Era Bruce Springsteen, the sax player from Amy Winehouse’s touring band, and Jackie Wilson start a round of golf as a foursome. At the turn, Phil Spector demands that they let him play through. And that’s when things get really out of hand.”The Innocent Bystanders have a fresh record our for your ready ears – a collection titled Attractive Nuisance. We asked the band to tell us more about the effort – they said, “The name Attractive Nuisance is taken from a legal doctrine about something that is beautiful but dangerous. We like to think this captures the essence of the EP. Melodic hooks, infectious grooves, and just a little bit of edge…It’s a big production with intelligent lyrics. Not that we planned it that way. Our style really developed organically with each member of the band just doing what sounded right. At least at this point, we don’t do sparse very well. There’s a lot going on. And I think it rewards repeated listening.” Click to https://
XXQs: The Innocent Bystanders
PensEyeView.com (PEV): How would you describe your sound?
Steve Semeraro (SS): Grace Slick, Wild & Innocent Era Bruce Springsteen, the sax player from Amy Winehouse’s touring band, and Jackie Wilson start a round of golf as a foursome. At the turn, Phil Spector demands that they let him play through. And that’s when things get really out of hand.
Steve Berenson (SB): Pop meets R&B with some Rock and Roll sprinkled on top. Authentic, with all of the pluses and minuses that go with that. Our two lead singers sing really well together. That’s not so much featured on our first EP. Hopefully, that will come out on future recordings. We don’t have trouble deciding who’s going to sing a song because we can just let both of them sing together. That works.
PEV: Calling San Diego home, what kind of music were you all into growing up? Do you remember your first concert?
Jessica LaFave (JL): When I was really little, I had one of those battery powered tape players and would carry it around playing music all the time – I like to think of that as my first musical inspiration. I saw a lot of music growing up but I feel like my first “concert” concert was probably Dave Matthews Band. I grew up in the 90’s so it’s basically required.
Ben Nieberg (BN): I was heavily interested in the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel when I was very young, collecting all of their albums by the time I was 8. Before the age of 14, I listened to a lot of Elton John, classical, folk, classic rock, soul, Big Band, and Judy Garland. My first concert was Joan Baez at the Hollywood Bowl in 1971.
SB: My first concert was the Charlie Daniels Band. As an early teen, I was a big fan of what was then referred to as “Southern Rock” (I still love the Allman Brothers). I caught Daniels at about the midway point in his transformation from dope-smoking “Long Haired Country Boy” to right wing yahoo (“In America”). It was actually a great show, but I never saw the band again.
Donny Samporna (DS): My first band was my seventh-grade jazz band at Hamilton Middle School in Stockton, CA. My first gig with them was at Pollardville – a small old-west themed attraction in Lodi, CA.
SS: I started with top 40 on WABC in NYC. I knew all the DJs. Then, I graduated to WNEW when I got an FM radio. I was a huge Beach Boys fan, and my first concert was at Giants Stadium where they played with The Steve Miller Band. Later, I became a Springsteen fan collecting virtually everything he ever recorded and most of his live shows as well.
Kaimi Wenger (KW): My first concert was Boston. I’ve always loved classic rock as well as soul, Motown, and anything with great beat, great hook, and great melody.
PEV: How has playing in The Innocent Bystanders been different from working with other artists or projects in the past?
SB: I once played in a band that featured a husband and wife team. One night, the husband missed practice because he was in jail for assaulting the wife. However, we had to keep the husband in the band rather than that wife after that, because his company let us practice in their warehouse at night. Unlike that band, all the Bystanders get along really well.
BN: Surprisingly, I didn’t ever play in a band before 2014. Prior to that I was either in classical choral ensembles or wrote my own music. Then I joined two bands at the same time – The Innocent Bystanders and a Joy Division cover band. They are very different experiences. The Innocent Bystanders takes me back to great rock classics over the last five decades and lets me sing R&B, which I love and grew up on, as well as classic rock and folk rock. With the Innocent Bystanders I really get to focus on singing while playing an instrument (usually acoustic guitar) and harmonizing which I adore when I’m not singing lead vocals. With my other band, I get intense with the microphone as lead singer singing Post-Punk classics. I really enjoy the comradery with my other bandmates in The Innocent Bystanders, and we have a humor and sensibility that we share that’s very refreshing.
SS: I’d say that every member of The Innocent Bystanders is both a little kid and an adult at the same time. It’s very rare to find a group like that.
KW: One of the defining traits of the Innocent Bystanders is that we all have day jobs. We’re not in this for the money, just the love of the music although it wouldn’t hurt if we made a million bucks.
PEV: What is the underlying inspiration for your music? Where do you get your best ideas for songs?
KW: For me music is a connection to a more visceral or primal part of myself. When I reach into those emotions it provides inspiration for my music. There has to be a spark. Once there is an idea in place sometimes the song just writes itself. The song “Highways”, I used to commute to work in Arizona through this empty desert stretch, and it gave me a sort of solitude and ability to think about questions and life. In a lot of ways, that space was more understandable than all of the complicated personal questions. So, when you look at the words, it’s like people are confusing. People tell lies. Deserts and mountains are much simpler and sometimes I just want to go to that space instead of the more confusing space of people.
Rob Karp (the JD Souther of The Bystanders contributed Gotta Get Outta Here to Attractive Nuisance and a couple of other songs we’ve been playing live that should be on the next EP): Writing lyrics when going through some kind of personal anguish, is much easier for me then writing about happy things or joyous times. It’s a depressing thought, but it’s true. The hope is that ‘letting it out,’ releasing the painful emotions, will help yourself and if you’re lucky enough to have your music heard, help others as well.
BN: My underlying inspiration comes from my family influences with my sister and mother heavy into music, and my godmother who played piano in a gospel choir in Los Angeles. I would say that I was a Beatles fanatic in the late 1960’s playing my LPs on my Kenner Phonograph in New Jersey, and then rock & roll stations in LA in the early-mid 1970’s. It’s terrific that I get to re-visit these influences with the Innocent Bystanders.
I am constantly writing melodies in my head, and listen to a lot of different types of music and they are constantly giving me ideas for songs. My lyrics I write are often based on personal experiences and people I have met.
PEV: Thinking back to when you first started out, do you ever look back on your career and think about your earlier days and how you’ve arrived where you are today?
JL: If I had a time machine, I’d go back to my high school marching band days and tell myself that I’d be playing in a rock and roll band 20 years later – I’m not sure I would believe me. I think I always knew that music would be a big part of my life [check out our Facebook feed for a picture of Jessica in that marching band].
BN: I am so blessed to have finally been able to perform music for the public with a band. I have known that I wanted to be a singer-songwriter since I was 13 years old or earlier, but have only been able to sing in choirs until 2014 when my chance came to perform rock, folk, soul, blues, and R&B in a band. Although I teach and practice law, my true love is music, and I’m grateful of the opportunity finally to play and sing, and have the motivation and confidence to pursue my own material, which is deeply satisfying.
DS: Having played music since six years old, I was always considering pursuing a music career. As I got closer to college, I chose to major in Engineering because I thought it would be better pay. Looking back, I am happy with my decision because I would have never met the Innocent Bystanders.
KW: The process of evolving as a musician is a long and never-ending journey. I’ve learned so much in the past few years but it’s just opened so many vistas as to how much there is to learn.
PEV: What’s one thing we’d be surprised to hear about the members of The Innocent Bystanders?
BN: We’re addicted to puns to our own benefit and detriment.
JL: We have an unlimited supply of bad puns.
DS: Six of us are lawyers.
KW: Yes, despite our hard-rocking appearance, we have very quiet day jobs as lawyers, academics, teachers, and so on.
PEV: What can fans expect from your release, Attractive Nuisance?
KW: The name Attractive Nuisance is taken from a legal doctrine about something that is beautiful but dangerous. We like to think this captures the essence of the EP. Melodic hooks, infectious grooves, and just a little bit of edge.
SS: It’s a big production with intelligent lyrics. Not that we planned it that way. Our style really developed organically with each member of the band just doing what sounded right. At least at this point, we don’t do sparse very well. There’s a lot going on. And I think it rewards repeated listening.
PEV: What can we find each of you doing in your spare time, aside from playing/writing music?
JL: The only thing I like more than music is food – in my spare time I’m definitely cooking or eating.
BN: Playing/writing music is my main love for my spare time, but I also love to backpack/camp/hike, travel and watch independent/foreign cinema. I’m an ethnic foodie, and I love exploring San Diego on my bike or on foot. I also love spending time with my kids cooking, doing sports events, and going to cultural events.
SS: I enjoy writing. I’ve been a professor doing academic writing for a long time, and more recently have gotten into fiction writing. I’m working on a historic novel about the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil.
DS: What is ‘spare time’?
Kath Rogers (KR): This band is the most fun thing that I do. It’s a break from my nerdy everyday lawyer existence.
KW: Kath can be found at Civil Rights protests and environmental marches. I enjoy good books, cooking, and playing useless video games. We both love walking our dog, Annie.
PEV: Name one present and past artist or group that would be your dream collaboration. Why?
SB: Chris Bailey from the Australian early punk band The Saints, because he just seems like such a nice guy in addition to being a great writer and musician.
JL: Stevie Wonder – he has had such an amazing career and it would be awesome to meet him.
SS: Little Steven Van Zandt. I would love to have him produce a record for us. I think he’d get what we are trying to do. And a collaboration between Jessica and Little Steven on horn parts would be out of this world.
KW: Present would be The Killers. They have a ton of musical versatility and a fantastic ear for melodies. As far as past artists, you can’t beat Simon and Garfunkel for amazing lyrics.
PEV: So, what is next for The Innocent Bystanders?
SB: Summer Break.
SS: With three song writers in the band, and some talented fellow travelers, we are lucky to have a bunch of new songs. We hope to release our second EP by the end of the year. No title yet. But a few songs we’ve been playing live are called “Rainy Sunday Morning”, “Book of Life”, and “No Place to Go”.
KW: I don’t know about the rest of you clowns, but I plan to train a duck to play the kazoo so the band will finally have a ducking good musician.