Sceneazine.com
Interstate Exiles: Classy road dogs who always deliver
by John Huiett
I
t’s September 13th and a storm is battering Columbia, SC. Lightning has already caused multiple
delays in the Carolina Gamecocks home game against
the Georgia Bulldogs. About three miles away, Interstate
Exiles are inside a packed Jillian’s, preparing to take the
stage to a club bursting with rabid Gamecock fans ready
to celebrate a victory. But with less than two minutes to
go in a nail-biter of a game, the storm has other plans.
The entire building goes dark. Only after almost the entire disgruntled crowd leaves does the power come back
on. So, at 10 p.m., instead of taking the stage, the Exiles
are munching on burgers and fries in the nearly empty
restaurant.
“They still want us to play,” says guitarist and vocalist Barry Shirley. “So, we’ll play.”
Albeit late, the band does take the stage, only to have
guitarist/vocalist Rick Carr break
a string in the middle of their first
song. But this is one of Columbia’s
hardest-working cover bands with
collective experience of more than
160 years. Shirley, drummer Tracy
Hollingsworth and bassist Vaughn
Hall cover for Carr so smoothly that
it’s almost like the string-break was
part of the show.
Before long, the club starts to fill again. The crowd
is diverse in age and ethnicity, but all have one thing
in common: they love Interstate Exiles. Young and
old alike are bobbing heads, singing along and raising
glasses as the Exiles slink their way through radio staples such as “Good” by Better Than Ezra, “Last Dance of
Mary Jane” by Tom Petty, and R.E.M’s “The One I Love.”
They even deliver on a Neon Trees cover. And their version of 311’s take on The Cure’s “Love Song” brings an
uproarious response.
That band started in early 2012, when a series of
coincidences and accidents threw Carr, Hollingsworth,
Shirley and Vaughn together. From the beginning they
all agreed that this thing needed to be special, not medicore. They spent a year rehearsing before playing live
and developed a sound based on smooth, tight vocal
harmonies, top-flight musicianship and putting their
own spin on songs people already know.
“We not only care about the music side, we care
about the singing too,” Carr says. “Are we going to be
in pitch? Are we going to be able to execute that with
regularity?”
Delivering on a regular basis is of utmost importance to the band. Interstate Exiles is another way of
saying “road dogs,” and they take the name to heart.
They are booked multiple nights per week at venues in
South Carolina and Georgia throughout the remainder
of the year. And it’s work that they love.
“We take the music seriously, but we don’t take our-
selves too
seriously,” Car
says. “We
want to laugh at each other. We want to joke with each
other.”
Part of making the music fun includes the band’s
knack for mash-ups. From combining a rocking version
of The Eurythmics’s “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”
with “Seven Nation Army” from the White Stripes as a
show opener, to their set closer of the Alice Cooper classic “School’s Out” seamlessly flowing into Pink Floyd’s
“Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two,” the band’s mashups are a proven crowd-pleaser.
“People, their faces just light up,” Hall says.
For Hall, being in Interstate Exiles is almost like having