For the local prog rock band Cerulia, their journey through music didn’t begin with an impromptu jam session or a Grammy acceptance speech-worthy eureka moment, but rather with a bet that grew out of a studio project.
“One of my friends challenged me to write an album once,” said lead vocalist and guitarist Kuyper Cummings, a senior in music. “I sat down for like 20 minutes and started to write some stuff out, and I realized right then that what I came up with was going to be spread out for a while and need a band.”
With material in-hand, Cummings, who has a long history in the Knoxville music scene, started a selection process that would lead to the band’s current line-up of Blake Sensenbach on bass and vocals, Asher Coker, a senior in music, on drums and vocals, and Chris Adams, a graduate student in music, on guitar.
“I had a bunch of friends who I knew were musicians and I found the best ones I could for drum, bass and guitar and was like, ‘Let’s record some music,’” Cummings said. “I basically bugged them until they said they would play with me.”
Sensenbach, however, jokingly described the process as being more like a “draft” and less like a bugging.
“We got drafted is what we say,” Sensenbach said. “Once I got together with these guys, it all meshed really well.”
From there, the band played a few local shows and started to work on their sound, which Sensenbach described as “melodic post-metal” with a range from groove rock to heavy metal, and with influences coming from The Dear Hunter and He Is Legend. That range, however, didn’t stop the band from having an early bump along the way.
“Our first show was at Coffee’z in Jefferson City,” said Cummings. “It seemed like there was going to be a good turnout, but there were only nine people there, and they all drove out from Knoxville.”
While the band has been touring throughout the state, they’ve also been hard at work on a grandiose four EP concept series called the “Wishing Tree,” which is Cummings’ attempt to synthesize common folklore into under 160 minutes worth of music.
“Each volume represents a different part of the storyline that makes up ‘The Wishing Tree,’” said Cummings. “ … Essentially it comes out of my love for mythology, folklore and historical fiction. So I took every piece of folklore that I could find and wound it into a single story line.
“It’s like how some people say that ‘behind every legend is a kernel of truth.’ Well this would be the one story that those legends would come from,” Cummings said.
So far the band has released only one EP, which was their highly metal-influenced second volume, but, like the depth of the band’s own style, the other three installments will show different creative and musical sides of the quartet.
“We wanted to have a group where we could play every single genre style we wanted too,” said Cummings. “… And that’s where the story line of our EPs comes from. As the story line progresses, so too does the genre.”
While the band works on completing the series (their next EP is expected to be released later this spring), one issue that stands out for them is the pride they take in local music and arts in Knoxville.
“I hear people say ‘Knoxville is dead,’” Cumming said. “And I don’t understand that. We have so much talent here that it’s ridiculous.”
Not only is Knoxville brimming with talent in the band’s eyes, but arts in general hold a special place in their hearts.
“Local artists, local musicians, regardless of what they do, they’re all jobs,” Sensenbach said. “And they may not be taken as seriously as other ones, but there is a lot of devotion and passion put into it. … And we may not be making a lot of money, but we get a lot of satisfaction out of it.”
Regardless of their genre, their path or even the jobs they’re holding, Cerulia will continue to make music that tells their stories, their way.
“Our musical style is always changing,” Sensenbach said. “We might not even sound the same in 10 years.”
Cerulia will play at the Longbranch Saloon on March 1, with On My Honor and Your Favorite Hero.
