Porchfest is responsible for a lot of firsts. The Cooper-Young event, held on April 19th, was the first time ET Cruiser performed. The band includes lead singer Lawson Day, guitarist Owen Wright, drummer Margo Araoz, bass player September Siskind, and, on synthesizer and keys, Iris McCann.
Day first saw Wright perform at the 2022 Porchfest. It was also the first Porchfest he had ever been to. He and some friends were walking along the sidewalk, singing Big Star’s “In the Street.”
“We were having a good time walking around Cooper-Young, just trying to get to the next porch or whatever,” says Day. All of a sudden they heard a band playing “In the Street.” “We freaked out,” he says, adding, “They were actually playing the song we were just singing.”
Wright was playing guitar of the song with a cover band, Strawberry Handshake. “I never met him in my life,” Day says. “I didn’t meet him until a few months later at a show at his house.” Wright was playing drums in a local band, American Death Machine, at that show. “I had a really good backyard and we used to host shows there,” Wright says.
They ran into each other from time to time and eventually became friends. “He knows a lot. Like music theory-wise and stuff. But he’s not pretentious about it at all.”
Hearing Wright’s band at Porchfest was a big part of why Day began ET Cruiser in the first place. He thought, “I need to be in a band. I need to do this next year.” Sure enough, Day and his band at the time, Macrophonics, played Porchfest in 2023. It was also their first performance.
Meanwhile, Day wanted to play with Wright. “We’d hung out and jammed some,” Day says. “I was just hitting him up to jam every once in a while.”
Day, who describes ET Cruiser as being “in the realm of punk rock,” began forming the group a year ago last spring. But, he says, “We didn’t really get going with it until maybe closer to fall. We planned on Porchfest being our first show. We were taking time getting songs done and that kind of thing.” Porchfest “feels more special. More energy overall.”
“I think the best thing about it was all of us had so many other things to offer to the band,” Wright says. “I’d played in bands where everyone knows the same amount of theory, knows the same amount of songwriting, knows the same amount of arranging.” But in ET Cruiser, all the band members “offer something completely different. I felt like I could shine.”
And, he adds, “No one steps on each other as far as the song goes. The song is the most important part.”
Their last practice session before Porchfest was at Java Cabana in Cooper-Young. It was the first time they heard themselves outside their practice space, Day says. “We were heavier.”
ET Cruiser’s debut show was “fantastic,” Day says. “The crowd that showed up was really special. I knew it was 2 p.m. at Porchfest — I figured we’d get a decent crowd. But everybody in front was dancing and stuff, which I really appreciated. I feel like Owen made pretty fancy dance music. It’s hard to get people to dance.”
His former band got people moving, but people really dance to ET Cruiser because there’s “more instrumentation in this band,” Day says. “It brings more of a wave over people. It’s a pretty great feeling to have people dancing to something they’ve never heard and that we’ve played for the first time.”
One example: “Tachyon,” the third song they played. “I think of this as being one of the least dance-y songs in the mix. But people were just kind of going at it from the beginning.”
Musically, “Tachyon” was a collaboration between Day and Wright. A tachyon is “a [hypothetical] particle that moves faster than light. I don’t know that much about it, actually. Just from reading Watchmen. Dr. Manhattan talks about it. Also, there’s a Steely Dan song where they talk about it.”
Day, Wright, and Siskind co-wrote another song, “Idiots Brigade.”
“Mostly I would say Owen structures out the songs and chooses the chords, and that sort of thing. And I pretty much just do the lyrics. I came up with the concepts of two songs, ‘Digital Distraction’ and ‘Go Karts on 55.’ Those still needed Owen’s knowledge to structure them out and give them just a little more depth.”
“Digital Distraction” is “about smartphones and how they take up a lot of our time and attention span and keep us from actually experiencing life.” As for the subject matter, Day says, “I’m trying to see all the negative aspects of how technology has been affecting people my age.”
So, where did the name “ET Cruiser” come from? “I’ve been meaning to ask that myself,” Day says. It wasn’t the first name that popped up for the band. Someone had suggested “Alien Cruiser” as in a “spaceship car,” Day says. “I was like, ‘I don’t know.’” But everybody seemed to like “ET Cruiser.”
ET Cruiser will play the “What’s for Breakfast?” show on Friday, May 15th at the Lamplighter Lounge.
