Something struck me after my conversation with lead vocalist Justyn Reese and guitarist Ryan Cox of the Oregon-based rock band Fluid. I've never opened an article with a definition. To be honest, I think it has every possibility of coming off cheesy....and I tend to just talk about how music makes me feel. Then again, there's always the exception....so here it goes:

Fluid: 1. Readily reshaped; pliable; 2. Smooth and flowing; graceful; 3. Changing or tending to change; variable; 4. Any substance that is able to flow. If ever I've seen a perfect description of a band's music based on a literal dictionary defition, I would say this is that example.

Fluid is Justyn Reese on lead vocals, Ryan Cox on guitar, Jason Legler on bass and Aaron Couchman on drums. In a sea of bands coming into the industry all cut from the same mold, Fluid stands out as a group of talented musicians with something different to offer the masses. This is music played the way the rock gods intended.....gritty, edgy, yet with perfect fluidity.

I spent some time talking with Justyn and Ryan recently about how Fluid got their start, and where things are headed for them in the very near future.

CHRISTINA AVINA: I'd like to start out with a little bit of background on the band in your own words. Can you tell me how you guys came together originally?

JUSTYN REESE: I guess it started back in high school between me and Ryan. I was asked to try out for a band that I really didn't know anything about, nor had I ever really sang before. I was mostly just trying to learn guitar. I tried out for the band, and god they were horrible. The music had nothing to it. Then Ryan at the same time was trying out for them and we were in this break, and Ryan started playing a Deftones song. Of course I start singing along and we had this eye contact like, yeah...as soon as this is over we can probably get together. I did a senior project with Ryan and recorded it in my garage, which was just us trying to learn how to play music in a functional band. I took a couple of years off while I went to college and then had a random phone call from Ryan saying, "Hey, I think we should do something with music," and it sounded like a good idea. That's the only thing I ever wanted to do and I think Ryan is the same way. We just started it and never really looked back. I dropped out of college and focused entirely on it. There just isn't anything we'd rather do.

CA: I can't think of any musician that I've ever spoken with who has related anything different. It's in your blood and you have to go for it. How did you find the other members of your band?

JR: Our original drummer....we've kind of gone through several other members. In fact, Ryan and I are the only existing members from when we first started. Our first drummer that we did our first album with was someone that Ryan had known from years before. They had started playing together, just kind of jamming. Him and I had similar tastes in music and that's how it started. How long did we play without a bass player (to Ryan)?

RYAN COX: Oh, it was about six months.

JR: Yeah, it was like six months that we played without a bass player. We did a Doors cover, and it was always kind of this joke...."You know what's great about The Doors and us? Neither one of us have a bass player."

CA: (laughs)

JR: We auditioned a couple of different people for the bass and mostly we just got them to buy beer for us while we practiced because they weren't any good, and they couldn't really keep up with what Ryan was doing on the guitar.

CA: I like that. That's a good plan.

JR: Yeah, it was good. By the time we actually moved up to Portland, we kind of figured we should take it a little more seriously. The amount of talent in Portland was much greater than it was in Southern Oregon, so we found a couple of musicians that we really liked working with and we're happy with that for now.

CA: With the lineup that you have now, how long have you all been together?

JR: We got Aaron Couchman, our current drummer, probably close to two years ago. We just recently, within the last six months picked up a new bass player.

CA: I don't think people realize how hard it is to find the right combination of people all with the same goals, all willing to do whatever it takes....whether it be moving or whatever it is to make a band work. It's a lot harder than people realize.

JR: No, it's true. Most of the time, whether it's just three members or eight members all together that seem to have a common goal, there are way too many differences to keep it going and actually make it work sometimes. At this point, I would just like to point out that we've kicked our current drummer Aaron Couchman out of the band three times now.

RC: I think he quit once because he hated me.

CA: Oh, wow. (laughing with the guys) Let's talk about your music. You had an EP that you released last night right?

JR: It was a full-length album actually.

CA: There was one song you had up on your profile on Myspace recently that I really liked....

RC: There is 'Suicide'....

JR: Was it the one we did with Page Hamilton from Helmet?

CA: That's the one.

JR: It's a fun track. We did that with him in Hollywood. It's kind of funny because we've written our full-length album over the course of three or four years and finally got it released because we decided to buckle down....after two years worth of horrible recording it finally came together. We did this and at the same time we're doing our CD release party, the first day we have a hard copy finished album, we were recording a song in Hollywood after performing in Vegas with Page. That first album we have connections to but there's so much more that we wanna do now. Just kind of going in a different direction; similar, but at the same time much more focused. Page really helped us with that as far as production and teaching us how to simplify a lot of crazy ideas that we have.

RC: Yeah, he actually wouldn't let me use any effects whatsoever.

CA: Really?

RC: He took me and just made me plug straight into an amp. He wittled my guitar playing down to nothing and made me realize how to give the rest of the band space. Before I had done that, you always try to do your best and have your flashiest guitar riffs with the coolest effects. He made me realize that its not about that. Now it's really cool. With our new music, I give the band so much more space. Everyone is so much more down to earth. No one is trying to show off and the music is better because of it.

CA: I'm glad you said that, because that's what I really like when it comes down to guitar playing. Pure, straight guitar playing without all the showmanship is where my heart lies. I'm glad you went that way, or that Page helped you to go in that direction.

JR: Definitely. He taught him a lot and it's really working out for us, just a great experience.

CA: Let me ask you about The Chronicles of Rock. That is something that I was very interested in. Tell me how you got involved with that to begin with? You were part of a select group right?

RC: Yeah, just 20 bands. The producer, he has been working out here on the West coast since the early 90's. He has a production company with music videos and all kinds of stuff, but he finally put this together with all of his connections that he's had over the years. All the bands that he's met or played with over the last year or so that he liked, he just signed on board. There was a far bigger pool of bands that wanted to do it, but simply couldn't. He wittled it down to 20, and we happened to be on the pilot episode. It was just three bands.

CA: That's great. Tell me about the concept of it; because from what I can tell it's a very behind the scenes look at what it takes to try to make a band work. Am I reading it right?

RC: Yeah. The first concept that he brought to the table in the initial meeting was....he used a lot of connections to reality TV, to stuff that you see on MTV, etc., that almost kind of makes you sick. It's supposed to be real life, but it's not. He was just like, why not take that a step further. He wanted to do a battle of the bands type of reality show, but instead of putting all the people in a house together and making them coexist, you need to catch them in their own environment. The camera crews would follow the band around and you see the dynamics between all the members, you see certain warm-ups that they do before a show....whether it's going through a vocal scale or having six shots of Jager or whatever it is. That was it was like....like an insight of how the band functions, and then the actual competition of it. You're put in a different city for a couple of different shows with the other bands and you play. You play your heart out. You show your portfolio of music and if the judges like you, you pass on to the next round and it kind of continues from there. It is reality show based, but at the same time it is a competition and they gave it a new spin.

CA: From what I've seen it will only be airing on a station out in Las Vegas, is that right?

JR: Correct, yeah. LVCS, Channel 35 in Vegas.

CA: Is there going to be any way that the rest of us peons that aren't in sin city can take a look at this after its aired?

JR: I think they were supposed to distribute it, actual hard copy versions of it, but the producer has been so busy. He's doing a Chronicles of Rap, Chronicles of Country, etc. No one has been able to get a hold of him lately. We were supposed to have a hard copy of the entire show, the pilot episode that's going to be airing. As soon as we get a hold of it, we'll be passing it around the best we can.

CA: Just from the promo that I saw, it seems like it could be a great show. I'd rather watch that than some of the other "reality" bullshit that I see out there. It would be nice if somebody picked it up and ran with it.

JR: What they did was, they went down and did a press junket in Vegas. They did an interview on Jay Leno about it, and the only TV station that did pick it up was the one in Vegas. The producer has big ideas for it from everything he's told us. Most likely, it'll start out small and then you try to expand. If it gets attention down there....it's a good atmosphere. It's really close to the L.A. scene. With any luck, it will get picked up. Otherwise, he's good at utilizing the internet, YouTube and things like that to just get enough attention. That's the main goal.

CA: It's just a matter of creating the right buzz for it. There have been a couple of things recently, the Bodog Battle of the Bands recently and so on. For me, honestly, there weren't a lot of true, dirty rock bands on these shows to keep me interested.

JR: Things have become really dull. That's just kind of the way it is. Pop, movie-industry music has kind of taken advantage of it all. It's unfortunate for some rock bands, but at the same time it kind of gives us a way to do whatever we want now. We're not competing for the top spot on radio. Instead, we're competing for having a good name for ourselves and for doing something that we already enjoy.

RC: We're doing something a little different than the other bands are trying to do. Everyone is trying to fit into a cube right now. Everyone wants to sound like these bigger bands to make them feel more comfortable. They think, "Oh, these big bands are doing great so if we sound like them we'll do great." It's not all about that, and we're glad. I think we actually stick out more because of it. Everyone is just becoming another brick in the wall basically.

CA: That's absolutely true. You mentioned something about pop music and in recent years I think pop, R&B and hip-hop was kind of the mainstay of the mainstream. I think that's changing a little bit. Do you think rock is starting to get a bigger presence in general, the way it used to be?

JR: I do. The mainstream has just become so saturated with the same thing over and over again. Even the dumbest people have to get tired of that. You can only be fed one thing before you get sick of it. I think that's happening a lot, plus I think a lot of these artists that have kind of stuck in their small group, people like John Freese or Trent Reznor, or any of these artists that have stuck to their style of music for years are finally getting a little bit of recognition. Foo Fighters are huge right now. They're doing all this music on TV and radio that you wouldn't expect because they truly are good musicians. I think people are kind of getting it. They won't get it right away. They'll have to be slapped in the head a couple more times before it comes back around full circle, but I think that the early 90's buzz about rock music might have a chance to come back sometime soon because people are tired of the same thing.

CA: I couldn't agree more. I am personally excited to see a lot more rock out there now. I don't even need to see it in the mainstream, nor do I want to that much....except that I want the bands to succeed. I want the bands to be able to go out there and play as many shows as they want to and make a living at it, and have the kind of success that they want to have. I think the bands that are doing it themselves now and putting out their own music, and staying out the whole mainstream major label chaos that's going on, might be having more fun doing what they love than the other bands.

JR: Well, it's an integrity issue. That's not necessarily saying that any of these bands, us included or some of the other ones out there that are actually making it, what they do care about is their music and their vision. They're not easily persuaded to do something else. That's what I would like to see. Even though things like Myspace and Facebook, and other ways of multimedia advertising are saturating the market, it's important for people to have creative space, an open environment to put things in place as much as they possibly can. They can show a huge audience their music, and get the audience's attention.

CA: It's a necessary evil, but I think ultimately it's been great for bands to get their music out there to massive amounts of people, and to have that interaction with their fans. It puts everyone on the same playing field.

JR: Exactly.

CA: Let me ask you this. There are a lot of summer festivals that go on out there. Are there any summer festival tours that you would like to see Fluid on at some point?

JR: Umm, Fluidpalooza I've heard is pretty good.

CA: (laughing with Ryan and Justyn) Aside from that one?

JR: I talk a lot about us wanting to do quality and not quantity, but at the same time, we'll do anything. If we're offered something and it seems like it would be a good time and we would get our music out to another audience, we would do it in a heartbeat. We've played 420 festivals that were ridiculous for us to play, but there happened to be a lot of people there so why not?

RC: There were mostly reggae bands....

JR: Yeah, but we geared toward it. If we were thrown on Warped Tour, we'd probably play songs that were geared toward that crowd. For the one person out there who might hear one song and say, "I like that, I want to hear the rest of their stuff," then the rest of it might appeal to even more than them. We'll play whatever. All that comes with management and booking. We're kind of stressed out with enough as it is with recording. Someone is going to have to step up to the plate one of these days and help us out.

CA: As far as your music is concerned, I have a lot of bands that I interview whose music doesn't really fit into one genre or another. If you had to describe your music, or make up your own genre to describe what you do on stage, what would you call it?

JR: I don't want to sound cheesy, but it's one of those things where when we started the band we were coming up with names that kind of describe us. Fluid is one of those things that is ever mutating. It takes any shape, and we don't put any rules on the music that we're making. It really is just fluid. You've got ups, you've got downs and you've got really calm parts, and you've got the roaring rapids. That's just the way it is. If music can be a fluid then that's probably what we are.

CA: Okay, now I'm going to give you an opportunity to share anything at all that you think our readers should know or hear about Fluid. Go for it right now.

JR: Mainly it would be this EP that we're doing. This little project that we started came from a lot of the guitar that Ryan was writing, mostly that when I'd listen to it just struck a chord. It's very specific. It is a concept album in a six song EP. The EP is going to be called 'Total Eclipse of the Son.' It's very religious based. It's a story about someone having trouble with faith. I think it has a good chance of connecting to the listener on all levels, musically and collectively. It's going to be an event.

CA: That sounds very exciting. I can't wait to hear it. When will it be done?

JR: It'll be done by this summer. We're gonna kick into gear and get it done.

CA: The last thing we get to do is a way for me to give you a chance to turn the tables. Everyone that I interview gets the opportunity to ask me a question. You can ask me anything at all that you want.

* after a moment of silence *

CA: Uh oh, I think I heard a pin drop.

JR & RC: (both laughing)

CA: I can almost hear Ryan's mind working, which scares the hell out of me.

JR: The gears in Ryan's head are usually well lubed.

CA: Oh no.

JR: What I'd like to know is....there's a huge difference between a professional musician and someone who deals with professional musicians and watching how they make it. What do you think we can do to help our chances, not to become famous and have a #1 single or anything....but to actually get a large amount of people the ability our band?

CA: I don't know that you could say it's one single thing out there to make that happen. Marketing, promoting and just getting your name out there is a huge aspect of the business. I think that's one thing that artists sometimes learn the hard way. They want to make music ultimately, not be businessmen or women. There just isn't any way to move forward in the industry though without knowing how to take on the business aspects of it and not just the artistic. There are so many bands out there now, as you know. Even though the internet has been a great thing for bands, it also has made people realize just how many artists there are out there trying to make it. So how do you choose which ones you want listen to? I saw that you just did your new website, which I think is great. Fans nowadays have a more personal stake in their favorite bands, because artists communicate more with their fans now....not only at shows but online as well. Bands hang out with fans after shows, chat online, put up tour videos to keep people interested, etc. There's also Music Choice Television. Are you familiar with that?

JR: No, what's it called?

CA: It's Music Choice Television. It's available on most cable networks like Direct TV, or Time Warner Cable. Aside from being able to pull up your favorite genre of music and hear the tunes, Music Choice puts up photos of the band with statistics and interesting info about them. It introduces the band as well as the music to the listener. If I have it on at any given point in the day, the chances are there will be several bands that I've interviewed on there, and all of them successful acts. It gives artists the chance to have airtime without radio involvement. I have it on all the time. Ultimately, having the right publicist behind you and creative marketing can push a band with talent to where they want to be.

JR: That was perfect. I'll put the check in the mail for your advice.

CA: Don't pay me yet. I'll bill you based on your success level, which I'm sure will be huge. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview today guys.

JR and RC: Thank you, Christina.

Be sure to check Fluid out on Myspace at the link below:

Fluid on Myspace