by John Bear
Daily Lobo
In Albuquerque they are homies. In England they are old beans. In the end they are all friends.
Friendship is what motivates Old Beans, an Albuquerque band in its third year. They lack the ambition that fuels many other bands - the fame and the fortune. All they really want to do is play music in local clubs and bars.
"It's not that we wouldn't mind going places with the music," guitarist Levi Mattson said. "But we are really more about just playing."
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He said they would like to record an album sometime in the future.
Old Beans will play Saturday at the Atomic Cantina as part of the Rock Outside the Box CD release. Rock Outside the Box is a compilation of more than 20 local bands and will be available the night of the show. Other bands featured on the CD will play at the Launchpad and Burt's Tiki Lounge.
Bass player Aaron Worley said he was inspired to join a band by standing in a bar for many years watching bands play.
"You spend enough time watching other people play and you say 'I can do this,'" he said.
Worley said most of the band members, with the exception of Mattson, had no real prior experience, musically speaking. They all decided to form a band one night and had to pick who played what instrument.
"Willy was a percussionist back in high school," he said. "And I played alto sax. That's about it."
Mattson used to play for the United. This is the first gigging band for all the other members.
"That's pretty much what we try to do, just stay together," Worley said.
He said the band's playing got a little tighter with the addition of Mattson back in February.
Guitarist and UNM art student Willy Larson said the band plays a pretty good blend of punk, metal and grunge.
Everyone with the exception of Matt Worley, the drummer, also sings lead vocals. He alternates between the two. Band members said the act of having different people writing different songs gives the band a wide variety of topics.
"There's a smattering of politics in there," Larson said. "There's also some stereotypical rock stuff."
Aaron Worley said he writes songs about whatever is on his mind at the time.
"I wrote this song called 'TV,'" he said. "It's not the standard 'kill your TV' song. It's just a song about how television drives me kind of crazy."
He also wrote a song called "Republican Girls."
"It's about these prim little Republican girls and how they need a dirty punk to show them how to have fun," he said.
