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Johnny and Lonnie Band have ties to extreme-sports world
Lonnie Park and Johnny West are the Johnny and Lonnie Band, which will perform this weekend in NEPA.
The music of Ten Man Push has become the soundtrack to the extreme sports world. The Central New York band has been named the Official Band of Motocross. Its song “In The Dirt” is the theme song on the Versus Network’s “Racer TV” show, and Travis Pastrana, famed in the extreme-sports world for his no-parachute jump — 3.3 million YouTube hits and counting — used Ten Man Push’s music in the climactic scene of his latest film, “Thrillbillies.”
So what are Lonnie Park and Johnny West of Ten Man Push doing playing covers in bars?
“Ten Man Push is a modern-rock band. Ten Man Push is more like going to see Nickelback,” said Park. “Whereas coming to see Johnny and Lonnie, it’s a couple guys from the band. … It gives us a chance to kind of have a few drinks and hang out with everybody.”
The Johnny and Lonnie Band will do just that this Saturday, May 8, when the duo performs at Rox 52 in Plymouth. Park said the band works without a setlist and is able to play everything from Seether to Billy Joel to Jerry Lee Lewis.
“Both of us play by ear, and we’re both vocalists,” he said. When someone makes a request, “hopefully one of us knows the tune well enough to start it,” he added with a laugh.
The idea, Park said, is to “play to the room.” That means playing a song, judging the feedback in the room, and then deciding whether to continue in that direction or shift gears.
Ten Man Push, meanwhile, has a very busy summer booked. On May 15, it will play a tour kickoff party in Cortland, N.Y., then drive all the way to California for a string of shows. And on Aug. 6, the band will play at Watkins Glen International’s NASCAR race weekend in upstate New York.
Park said the extreme sports and motorsports connection was first forged because he had a few brothers-in-law that were professional motorcycle riders. The song “In The Dirt” on Ten Man Push’s first album “got into some hands, and they fell in love with it,” he said. Since then, the band has been featured on NBC, MTV, the Speed Channel and more.
“The music has definitely become associated with extreme sports and motorsports,” said Park, who fronts Ten Man Push as a singer and guitarist.
With record sales drying up across the board and the radio landscape in flux, the value of landing songs on TV or even in viral sectors like YouTube is more important than ever, and that’s something Park and his bandmates clearly recognize.
“The weird thing about the music market right now is it’s very difficult to measure,” he surmised. “You used to be able to count the album sales. Now people just get the music. It’s on people’s iPods. But when you come to a town where you have a pocket following, and first 20 people show up, and the next time 200, then 300, you can see that it’s working.”
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Johnny and Lonnie Band,
Saturday, May 8, Rox 52 (52 E. Main St., Plymouth). Info: myspace.com/johnnyandlonnie