American Minor

American Minor is a five-piece guitar-driven rock and roll band that hails
from the Kanawha River valley of southern West Virginia; not exactly known
for being a hotbed of musical activity or a hotbed of anything else
really. For the past year, when their van hasn't been breaking down on
the highway, they've been practicing at blistering volumes in a rundown
century-old farmhouse in Champaign, Illinois.

Four out of the five members have spent time living in a trailer, three
have done construction work, none of them come from musical families, and
while all five will agree that Deep Purple is a pretty bitchin' rock
group, all five will say the same thing about Fugazi. Ask these young men
(21-25, if you care) anything more about their influences and they’ll
gladly admit to worshipping at the altar of the classics; Stones,
Skynyrd, AC/DC, Ramones, Heartbreakers, Mats’, Lennon, Sabbath, etc. but
they seem to speak ‘indie-rock’ with equal fluency. They’re just as
likely to give it up for Pavement or The Refused. Must be a generational
thing--or maybe these boys just love great music and don’t really care
what you call it.

These West Virginians pride themselves on writing songs-with no pomp, no
circumstance-about things they experience in everyday life: the mentally
ill struggling in the streets of their dilapidated hometown; the police
interrogating a suicidal neighbor late at night in their apartment
building; the loose talk that spews forth from women on tour; and the
deranged people they wished they never had the opportunity to meet. When
asked about their "mission" as a band, lead vocalist Robert McCutcheon
very matter of factly points out the absurdity of that question, "Last
time I checked, rock bands don't go on missions, the only thing I can
really think to say in response to that question is that we're an
American band. And in accordance to the well-established and
long-standing tradition of the 'American Band', we're coming to your
town--we come to party down."