Republished from MOVE Magazine

“Music feeds our soul,” bassist Travis Huff said during an intermission of a Sunday afternoon band practice. The other three members of The Stonethrowers chuckled at Huff’s cheesy response, but none can deny their agreement with him.

A hunger for music brought The Stonethrowers together in February. They started gigging in July. This Saturday, the band will host a ladies’ night at Mojo’s.

“The fun thing is that we’ve all turned each other on to a bunch of different music that we would’ve normally not listened to,” drummer Gerry Blaise said. “We’ve rounded out our whole musical repertoire and tastes by playing with other people that have different influences.”

This Saturday marks the group’s third show at Mojo’s.

“It’s intimate but big enough that you can actually have a big crowd there,” singer and guitarist Joe Goforth said.

The Stonethrowers hope to move on to bigger venues, specifically The Blue Note. An EP might also be in the mix, and the group has a long-term goal set for itself.

“We want to be the go-to band that people want to hire when they have a party or function in town,” Goforth said.

The band has a few original tunes, but the majority of its songs are covers chosen by committee.

“Somebody will bring something to the table and it gets the thumbs up or the thumbs down,” lead guitarist Joe Scott said.

Huff added to Scott’s statement.

“It allows the cream to rise,” Huff said. “It’s a democracy.”

Huff and Blaise have played together for 22 years in bands such as Spankin’ Rufus. They have opened for acts such as Eddie Money, Spin Doctors and Merl Saunders. Scott and Goforth played in an Internet band, Schroedinger’s Cathouse, for three years before deciding they wanted to play live music. Goforth recruited gym buddy Blaise, who brought along Huff and his resurrected interest in playing bass. The Stonethrowers were born.

“It was perfect,” Goforth said. “It just all came together really quickly.”

Naming the band was not quite as simple.

“Choose a band name, go on the Internet, Google it, find out it’s already used, use it anyway,” Goforth said. “That’s what we did.”

The band’s inspirations include Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd (both of which it has covered) as well as more modern artists such as Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters and Wilco.

“For anybody that likes any good, hard-driving, crunchy, semi-alternative, semi-classic rock, they’ll like our show,” Goforth said.

More specifically, Goforth hopes more ladies will like the show.

“Supposedly, when you’re the front man in a rock ‘n’ roll band, the girls flock to you,” he said. “On that front, I can say I have two words, and that’s, ‘epic fail.’”

While the band likes to have its fun, it all comes back to doing it for the love of music.

“I like it because I get to drink a bunch of beer on Sunday afternoon and rock out, dude,” Blaise said.

Original: http://move.themaneater.com/stories/2010/11/19/chucking-some-rock-music/