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The Summers: Wesley (from left), Branson and Jared Summers and Peter Armstrong.
The Summers are four people. But there are only three Summers.
Branson, Wesley and Jared Summers are brothers. Branson, 18, plays drums; Wesley, 16, sings and plays lead guitar; and Jared, 16, is the lead singer and a guitarist. Peter Armstrong, 19, the newest member of the group, sings and plays bass. He’s not related, but he looks like he is, which confuses fans.
Two of the Summers are twins, which also can be confusing. Jared wears gauges in his ear lobes, but Wesley doesn’t, so that’s one way to differentiate.
People ask Armstrong if he’s a brother. Armstrong responds: “No, no, no. I’m a cousin.”
“People see Peter and say, ‘He looks like a good fit,’” Branson said. “It’s the eyes and the hair.”
“It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, Peter looks like us. He should be in the band,’” Wesley said. “It was like he was just a quick learner. And his stage presence.”
“This band is heavier than other bands that I’ve played in,” Armstrong said. “Everyone’s on key with each other, and everyone gets along with each other really well. I guess because they’re brothers.”
Adding a new member wasn’t the only change for The Summers, who began playing shows almost immediately after moving to Memphis from New Albany, Ind., three years ago.
Wesley remembers when he thought, “Moving from Indiana six hours a way to a whole new place, that was the worst idea ever.”
“That move kind of inspired a lot of writing for Wesley, but it was all about missing people and wishing things were better,” Branson said.
“We started to get more in touch with the local scene, the other kids our age, the other bands,” he said. “It was more us making friends and meeting people in other bands. Like now we have all these bands we can play with that we live near by. They’re all friends of ours now, so that’s kind of what got us started.”
When they first moved to Memphis, they began playing at Redbirds games. “We decided to take it more seriously,” Wesley said. “Instead of being looked at as a novelty act who plays Kiss and Poison at the baseball games Downtown, we want to be known as a band. We have our own genre. We have our own sound.”
Their biggest boost was meeting Paul Ebersold, who produced their latest EP, The Summers. “He was a perfect fit for us,” said Branson.
They met Ebersold through the Memphis Music Foundation. “We got off to a slow start,” Branson said. “He had just finished working with this band called The Dares from L.A. And they’re twin brothers and a friend. At first he was kind of like, ‘I just did something like this.’”
Wesley, who, along with Armstrong, does the songwriting for The Summers, wrote his first song when he was 12. “One day I wrote a song, and I liked it,” he said. “It was dumb. It was called, ‘Is this Really Love?’
“At one point I remember every song was just kind of like I can rhyme words and just whatever I could put in that sounded good and actually go with everything else a little bit. After a while it kind of started to become something that I took more seriously.”
“My Other Identity” was the first song The Summers ever recorded. “It’s about being in a band and having a band identity and then having your own other core of friends,” Wesley said. “It’s not about being important; it’s about being in a band and living two different lifestyles.”
The Summers still are evolving. “Musically, I’d say the EP is pretty pop-rockish, less on the punk side,” Branson said. “It’s very different from our live show now. We’ve made things a little more punky.”
They’re still “on the same track” as far as their music having “some radio feel to it, poppy, but we don’t want to only appeal to that crowd,” Jared said. “So, we have a little bit of easy-corish (music). That kind of feel to it. We’ve grown up a little from the Redbirds phase.”
“Our music has definitely matured a lot in the last three years,” Branson said.
The Summers currently are working on their next CD, which they hope to release at the end of the year.
The Summers
6:30-10 p.m. Friday night at an all-ages benefit show for Invisible Children. Hi-Tone Cafe, 1913 Poplar. Also performing are The Theoretical Monkeys and Whatsinaname. Cover: $7. Call (901) 278-8663.
On Sunday, The Summers will open along with The Vital Society and Just for Kicks for The Squid Life Tour featuring The Punches, Thieves and Carridale at the 1884 Lounge inside Minglewood Hall, 1555 Madison. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets are $8 the day of the show. Call: (866) 609-1744.
Listen Up spotlights area performers. Michael Donahue can be reached at (901) 529-2797.
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