New band suits former V-Roys members well

IF YOU GO

The Faults with Scott Miller and Commonwealth

WHEN: 10 tonight

WHERE: Blue Cat's, 125 E. Jackson Ave., Knoxville's Old City

HOW MUCH: $10 advance, $12 at the door

CALL: 544-4300

By Steve Wildsmith

of The Daily Times Staff

After years of donning a suit on stage as co-founder of the Knoxville alt-country outfit The V-Roys, Mic Harrison's biggest dilemma now that the group has broken up is deciding what to wear.

The rest, as they say, is all gravy.

"I've got the suit, so I don't have to worry about that," Harrison said during a phone interview last week, promoting his new band, The Faults, and the band's upcoming gigs this week.

The group opens for former V-Roy bandmate Scott Miller tonight at Blue Cat's in the Old City and for Knoxville rockers Superdrag on Wednesday night at the Tennessee Valley Fair.

The Faults, which also includes former V-Roy Paxton Sellers and guitarist Robbie Trosper, released their self-titled debut album, in June. Fans expecting a second-helping of The V-Roys' down-home sound came away shocked.

The album is a collection of rough-and-tumble rock 'n' roll, owing more to Cheap Trick and Van Halen than to the V-Roys.

The sound isn't an about-face; there's still the familiar "Dishonest Jenny," which worked its way into the V-Roys' setlist before the group called it quits on New Year's Eve 1999; "Whispering Goodbye," a honky-tonk rocker with R&B undercurrents; and "Lazy Eyes" has a sweetly meandering hook that makes it a nice coda to Harrison's body of work with his former band.

But peppered throughout are gems like "Big Show," a rocker as good as Foo Fighters' "Learning to Fly," the snarling assault of "Watertown" and the full frontal assault of "Wake Up," with a shimmering guitar echo that push Harrison's languid vocals to a rollicking crescendo.

"I like it all, but pop kind of comes out more than the country stuff I was doing with The V-Roys," Harrison said. "Now I feel like I can pretty much do what I want."

After the V-Roys breakup, Harrison, Sellers and drummer Jeff Bills decided to stick together, adding Trosper and forming The Faults. Bills left to concentrate more on the band's label, Lynn Point Records, and was replaced by Knoxville drummer Jason Peters, who has since left the group. After the group recorded the album, Harrison said, he realized that the band had quickly established its own identity.

"I thought, this is great and everything but now we've got our own sound," he said. "I sure wish we could make another record real quick."

The band has already cut five or six new demos Harrison feels are albumworthy, beefed up by Trosper's songwriting. The band's sound is changing he said, influenced by his rediscovery of songs he used to listen to as a kid and Trosper's and Seller's enthusiasm of old garage rock.

Because of the loss of Peters -- over an incident in Nashville Harrison is reluctant to go into -- Superdrag drummer Don Coffey Jr. will fill in for tonight's gig and Bills will be on the bill on Wednesday.

And could there be a possible on-stage V-Roys reunion tonight? Harrison was evasive.

"You'll have to ask Scott that," he said. "It's his show. I'd do it in a heartbeat: I mean, we're still friends and everything, and I just talked to him yesterday. We tried to get together a couple of months back and write a little bit, just for the heck of it. I think his record's great, and Knoxville's always been good to both of us."