The Herald Bulletin

Overnight update

Entertainment

If you go

  • What: FM90 CD Release Party, with cosmic bowling before the show
  • When: 9:30 p.m. Saturday
  • Where: Shouts Sports Pub, Cooper’s Sport Bowl, 1920 E. 53rd St., Anderson
  • Admission: $5
  • Information: fm90music.com, castlerecords.com or search FM90 Band on Facebook and YouTube. FM90 says its music will be available through iTunes, CD Baby and Amazon.com.

Related Photos

  • FM90 is, from left, drummer Kyle Gibson, guitarist Kevin Boyer, singer Gabriel Sigler and bassist Chad Bishop.

    1231-Comm-FM90.jpg

Discussion

December 30, 2011

Sounding in 2012

FM90 signs recording deal, plans album release show

By April Abernathy The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON, Ind. — A certain alternative, almost grunge rock sound resonates in the lyrics and music of a local band that got its start playing ’90s-era cover songs in crowded bars.

The band, FM90, will kick off 2012 with new music and a recording contract courtesy of Castle Records, a division of Tower Music Group.

The foursome came together in 2008 after leaving previous bands.

“We just wanted to start something fun,” Chad Bishop said. “After a year and a half, we started writing our own stuff. It progressed from there.”

Bishop, the 34-year-old bass player from Anderson, said the band traveled to Lakeside Recording Studio in Nashville to record some of the music they had put together.

“On our second trip down, the producer told us he was interested in our stuff,” he said. “We finished recording and mixing then scheduled a new year’s CD release party.”

Singer and keyboard player Gabriel Sigler, 38, met drummer Kyle Gibson, 35, both of Anderson, in 1989.

“He was in a band,” Sigler said. “So we had music as a common ground between us.”

In 1992, Sigler and Gibson met Bishop. Six years later, the three met guitar player Kevin Boyer.

FM90 wasn’t an idea then; the four men were involved in their own projects. A chain reaction of events brought the four together.

“A house band at a local club needed a singer, then the bass player left. I knew Chad, so ...,” Sigler said. “Then we needed a guitar player and asked Kevin to fill in. Then the drummer was out, and we needed one, so, of course, I’d known Kyle forever.”

What started as playing for fun grew serious.

“We found out that when we started writing that we really clicked,” Boyer said.

It was a feeling that Gibson said wasn’t always common when bands were formed.

“Then we decided to just take a chance,” Sigler said.

Tired of playing the same covers night after night, FM90 put the talents together and an original sound was born.

“There is an air about this band,” Sigler said. “What I hear is positive. There is no competitiveness.”

Musical inspirations range from ’70s rock and funk to Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails.

“Our songs aren’t average rock songs. They’re not about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” Boyer said. “They are positive lyrics with a positive influence.”

“I just write about real things and real people that I meet,” Sigler said. “There are songs about rape and domestic abuse. I sing about real things with a solution and don’t leave listeners hanging.”

Right now, the focus for the band is its new single, “Freedom,” about reaching out and understanding life’s imperfections.

Sigler’s smooth voice, a combination of Layne Staley of Alice in Chains and David Draiman of Disturbed, opens the song, which soon breaks into a guitar-pounding chorus. The keyboard adds an almost haunting, goth-like twist. The song is demanding, prompting the audience to shout “hey!”

“We created something we like to listen to,” Gibson said. “It’s something I hear and say, man, I made that.”

Contact April Abernathy: 640-4861, april.abernathy@heraldbulletin.com

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