East Coast Bigfoot

There’s a new band making the rounds in town. The sound is new, but the faces are familiar.

East Coast Bigfoot came together when singer-songwriter Devinne Meyers wanted to fill out her solo music and do something bigger and louder, and drummer Ty Whitbeck assured her that there was nothing stopping her. The musical coupling is now joined by bassist Stephen Schweitzer, who dug their sound so much upon hearing them live that he had to ask to join in. The three now hope to add their own unique edge to the local music scene that has so inspired them.

Beyond bringing music to people’s ears, it is important to the group that to they are contributing something original and bringing something new to the table. “That’s where my heart is,” says Stephen. “One reason I wanted to play with you guys.”

Devinne has an uncanny ability to evoke the voices of her influences, which range from Ellie Goulding to the Dixie Chicks, from P!nk to Rachael Price of Lake Street Dive. At times in her songs you can pick out these artists’ tones and inflections distinctly, but it’s mostly her own special blend guided by swooping and diving melodies. Ty brings another set of influences to the group. “I listen to funk and soul and early rock and roll, and I think that comes out a lot,” he says. The quality they try to emulate from the artists and genres they admire is timelessness.

The band (with former bassist Gabriel Plaine) first performed in February at the Old Union Hotel. For Devinne, who started out as a soloist singing and playing guitar into a camera for her YouTube channel, one of the best things about playing with a band is playing live and playing loud. She played gigs as a soloist, but she found she was limited in her range. “It’s just softer; I wanted to do more loud head-bangers.”

She released a solo album in 2013, which she produced by herself in her apartment. Titled “Unrefined,” it feels naked not only in its simplicity– a girl and her acoustic guitar– but in the thoughtful, longing feeling of the lyrics and the fluttering vocals. It is soft but rich in variety, and the way the melodies build upon each other makes it easy to imagine the songs lending themselves to compositions of greater volume.

Devinne says that the attitude that allowed her to create the album all on her own is the same one that’s been moving East Coast Bigfoot forward: “I don’t care what people say- I’m just going to do it.” Her solo album is integrated into the band’s sound, in that it provided some material to start with as they write new songs. But according to Ty, the band has built up the material so much that, “although we still play those songs, they don’t sound anything like them.” It’s true: the addition of drum and bass have brought out the blues in Devinne as well as they had for powerful vocalists like Alanis Morisette.

Ty and Stephen both live and work in Binghamton. Devinne grew up in Binghamton and now lives in Ithaca where she works at a café. The trip is no big trouble for her, though. “I’m here anyway, because all my friends are down here… and a lot of shows, and this guy-” she points at Ty. Ty also plays for the Lutheran Skirts and the Zydeco Po’ Boys, but he was looking for a new project and found one here.

Ty got his start with music when he was little. “I would bang on pots and pans. I would imitate Whitesnake. My cousin Joe had a drumset and I could barely sit on the stool,” he says. Devinne was involved in music in school. “I’m classically trained on the flute, which one day I need to just break out and play some Jethro Tull. I played in marching band, and I was in symphony orchestra, and I played piccolo.”

As for Stephen, he has a bunch of experience playing with bands, and he’s also recognized as a photographer, both professionally and creatively. You may know him from his recent project, Lucem Picturae, a series of light paintings he creates live using long exposures and video projection loops. He’s the most recent addition to the band, but he’s known Ty and Devinne long enough that the chemistry is already there. Both he and Ty are beginning to add some songs they’ve written to the set list.

They’re an eclectic mix of people who differ enough from each other musically and as people that their fusion creates something unique. Ty says, “Our scene here is so diverse, but at the same time we’re all wanting to see each other succeed and collaborate and do some stuff that nobody’s ever heard before.”

East Coast Bigfoot plays Cyber Café West in Binghamton with Milkweed on 4/1, Antonio’s in Endicott on 4/11, and Callahan’s Sportsman’s Club in Binghamton on 4/25. Check ‘em out on Facebook. - Triple Cities Carousel