Grotto North

Grotto North is the kind of band that is hard to fit into a narrow category. There's a lot of Old-and Nu-Metal influence, of course, but added to these are heavy doses of Progressive Rock, Jazz, Classical, and Eastern music. In fact, the two founding members met while studying Non-Western music at college. The first full CD, , shows a lot of versatility, but the followup "concept EP" called really fuses the various influences and shows off the band's musical growth. for more.

The band is the brainchild of guitarist Dave Pearson and bassist Greg Meyer, who started writing and playing music together casually in 1993. The two met in a Non-Western Music class, and both were looking for a heavy band where they could enjoy the freedom to shape a new sound around their widely varied musical tastes. After several years of on-and-off playing and numerous temporary lineups, the band was finally completed with the addition of drummer Dave Martinson in late 1997. Martinson brought a strong and focused work ethic to the group, and by April of 1998, the band was playing club dates and soon began recording for their first demo disc, aptly titled ., was released in 2001 and sold over 600 copies directly from the band in the first 4 months alone. While the band kept busy playing club dates across Michigan and beginning to branch out into the regional scene, it also started to gain a following in places it has never been, thanks to the World Wide Web. Two consecutive singles placed in the top 100 in their genre on mp3.com, and the single was selected from over 2000 songs in the Hard Rock genre as “Track of the Day” due to enthusiastic reviews on garageband.com. The Grotto North mailing list grew to include fans in over 40 cities in 3 countries, and nationwide U.S. retail chain distribution was secured for Silence Broken. is due to be released in mid 2004, with more individual songs still being written for a subsequent full-length CD.

Yeah, all around Michigan and into the neighboring states. We've really enjoyed playing in our hometown of Kalamazoo, in Grand Rapids, and St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit. Those are some great venues. But we'll play anywhere, anytime, for anyone who wants to hear us. We even played an outdoor show at Western Michigan University in 30-degree weather once. (Not many bands can say they've played a set in sub-freezing stage temperatures - they're probably smarter than we are!)

So many influences... let's see... The early ones were bands like Metallica, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Dio, Motorhead, Slayer - stuff like that. Then there's a lot of progressive influence from bands like Rush and Dream Theatre. And unlikely artists like Simon & Garfunkel, Dave Matthews Band, Fiona Apple, Bjork, Sigur Ros, and Andres Segovia have an influence, too. The current bands we like a lot are bands like Tool, A Perfect Circle, Incubus, Chevelle, Staind, System of a Down, etc.