PureVolume

Since its inception in 2001 as the humble project of a few every-way-average kids from east San Diego, Straight No Chaser has evolved into its current genre-nudging form out of a mutual frustration with modern rock music. The impetus for the band came at a time when some of the best groups in indie rock Sunny Day Real Estate, Dismemberment Plan, Burning Airlines, Shiner had all gone tits up, leaving fans with a gaping hole in their music collections. The members of SNC feared an impending stagnation in the very music that had made them musicians.

But Straight No Chaser forged ahead. Their interlocking rhythmic and vocal lines, heart-kneading lyrics, and concise art-pop sensibility put them in league with the newest leaders of rock music; they have been likened to such bands as No Knife, Cursive, Q And Not U and Death Cab For Cutie. The bands members come from a wide range of musical backgrounds, from jazz to punk rock to classical and opera all of which adds to why they are further developing the framework of modern rock music (Matt Lescault-Wood, Music Director for KGFN San Diego).

In their quest to find new ways of shaping sound, they have shared the stage with Pinback, Counterfit, New End Original, Sugarcult, Thought Riot, Benton Falls, Louis XIV, Thrice, Rochelle Rochelle, B-Side Players, Noise Ratchet, The Velvet Teen, and many others. They have also been featured in a stage production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Their live show is simultaneously a testament to the emotional nakedness of their foregone predecessors and an arrhythmic dance-fest of dynamic proportions.
Straight No Chasers desire for something unique has led them to appropriate and alter standard song structures, giving way to a style whose form compliments its function. Their current release, Panoramic, delivers a tender sonic punch that leaves the listener questioning what has happened to the rest of rock (Rinaldo P. Dorman, Editor, The Guardian).