Today we’d like to introduce you to Short Notice
Hi Short, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Short Notice began as a two part guitar duo, doing covers. Eventually, Short Notice grew into a band, playing one of their first official gigs at a boat club, which is where they got the name. One of the guitar players, who is no longer with the band, met the current bassist, Jewels. Together, Jewels and her friend, Gabe, who is the current drummer, came together with those two guitar players to form the band. Within the past year, the band experienced some changes, losing a guitarist to other musical endeavors, and gaining a lead vocalist- and this is the Short Notice product of today; Joseph Derhake on vocals, Will Jurgens on guitar and vocals, Jewels Fuqua on bass and vocals, and Gabe Kyle on drum set.
Short Notice is a 4 piece midwest emo band, playing whenever and where ever we can. We played gigs locally at the start, playing in Jacksonville, IL and Springfield, IL. Eventually, we began expanding our horizons, spreading into the surrounding states and collaborating with other amazing bands. We are currently working on completing out first album, the music in which we play live, and are excited for the new year to continue playing with other groups, exploring new venues and musicians as a group of friends who love to play music together.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t been completely smooth. Even at the beginning, the band was split in two- with two members each living in different areas. We’ve always commuted to meet each other, and practice and perform- even now, with all 4 members living in different cities. We completely fund ourselves- using the money from our performances, or perhaps our own pockets, to fund our ventures and provide any equipment we may need.
We’ve also learned how to run a lot of our own equipment- be it sound, lighting work, or more. There were learning curves with a lot of things, and we’ve had to spend a lot of time as a group learning how to better record ourselves, improve our sound, our image, etc.
We also run under no management yet. We book, schedule, and manage anything with the band ourselves. It takes a lot of planning and coordinating not only within ourselves, but with other bands and venues to do what we love to do in front of an audience.
And half of us work full time, and the other half work and go to school. So on top of daily obligations, life, family, and friends, we work around classes, other performance schedules (since everybody in the band is multi talented and multi instrumental, so we all find ourselves in other performing groups), and more.
Overall, the core band has been together for going on 4 years. There have been frustrating times, tiring times, and times where we are more like friends, family, or siblings to each other more than we are collaborating musicians. We’ve been turned down from opportunities, we’ve lost competitions or battles, and we’ve had trial-and-error performances. But overall, the thing we know best is that we have each others backs through whatever gets in our way.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Short Notice is an active, 4 piece midwest emo band. We specialize in fast, twinkly guitar riffs, personal lyricism, powerful vocals, technically intricate and choppy drums, and fast, thumping bass. We play with a number of other cognate genres, including but not limited to- rock, metal, punk, hardcore, grunge, etc. We just love to play and spread our music to wherever we can.
We are most proud of how much work we’ve accomplished with ourselves. We’ve really worked some late nights writing music, perfecting our sound, doing what we can to practice and record and work in a studio, and perform wherever we can. We constantly reflect on where we used to be as a band- 6 months ago, 1 year ago, and so on. We are proud of always trying to be better than we were yesterday.
We are also extremely proud of doing the things that scare us- the big performances, reaching out to larger bands and talking/playing with them, getting on a stage with our hearts and hoping they’ll be accepted.
What really sets us apart from others is our unique approach to writing music and our stage presence. Sometimes, when writing a song, the product ends up coming from one simple chord progression, or a riff, or a melody in our heads. We piece it together in different ways- some of us able to do it in one sitting, and some of us refining it all the way to the studio. We all also come from different musical backgrounds, which enhances our unique sounding music.
And we have so much fun on stage. Over everything that we do, our energy and our interactions with each other are what we love to do so much. There’s dancing, crowd interaction, jumping, and just smiles the entire performance. We receive constant feedback on our fun energy, and how it’s infectious to those watching us.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
We stick together no matter what. We’re all honest with each other about the song writing process, our performances, and our band chemistry. We’re also friends above it all- we care about each other inside and outside of the music, and we all want each other to succeed. We feel as if that’s the more important aspect of it all- the ability to still get up even if there’s setbacks, and tell ourselves we’re still going to work together and collaborate.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/short_notice_official/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shortnoticeofficial4/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdpPQQIXkgeX-ppTXtknnxA
- Other: https://linktr.ee/shortnoticeofficial – to listen to any of our music on available streaming platforms!
