Chris Madaffer | Uptown News
On Aug. 7, Speaker In Reverse, a newly minted indie-pop band in San Diego, will release their inaugural demo at The Tin Can Ale House in Bankers Hill. While their recently released single, “Blood & Heights” has gained traction online, their roots trace back only a couple of years.
In 2012, skilled multi-instrumentalist Itai Faierman’s band, Bulletins, was holding auditions for a new drummer when Shae Moseley arrived to impress.
Moseley didn’t get the gig, but Faierman was so enamored with the drummer’s chops that the two of them began jamming together on the side.
Both skilled at multiple instruments, the two formed the beginnings of a band based around the idea of every member playing multiple instruments, with rotations being done even in the middle of songs. Faierman said the model “offers us a wider musical landscape to explore different sounds while the songs are forming” while simultaneously utilizing the talents of all the band members.
When Bulletins eventually dissolved, Faierman devoted his attention to this new project, eventually adopting the name Speaker In Reverse. In March 2014, the band recorded two singles, “Blood & Heights” and “Holy Girl,” which showed the band could be accessible from a pop standpoint while still utilizing its creative instrumentation.
The band nearly solidified its lineup by adding Jeff Grasmick, Mason Farnsworth and Rick Newton, all talented multi-instrumentalists in their own right. But a chance encounter led them to their final, sixth member.
By the end of April, Faierman was looking for an actress for the “Holy Girl” video. When Faierman was having some morning coffee at a Starbucks in Mission Hills, he met a woman named Megan who looked the part for the video. Megan referred him to her friend, Sara Schairer, a talented musician who had always desired to be in a band.
Speaker In Reverse brought in Schairer shortly after and the lineup was finalized and ready to shine together.
“Every member of the band really steps up and offers something to how the songs develop,” Faierman said. “I’ll come in with an idea, but then it’s open to everyone’s interpretation of their parts and the emotional content they’re going to share and put into it.”
At their upcoming show at The Tin Can, the band will host a “Cassette release party” that not only celebrates their two singles, but will also fundraise for Schairer’s nonprofit and global social movement, “COMPASSION IT,” a non-profit organization whose intent is to educate the world about the power of compassion. It raises funds for education programs by selling a wristband reminding the wearer to perform an act of compassion every day.
“When I was thinking about the release show, I really wanted it to be a ‘Happening,’ you know, like what they used to call ‘Hootenanny’s’ when Woody Guthrie was around,” Faierman said. “There was a reason people were getting together back then — they had something to say. I wanted it to be an event that was bigger than the band itself and I knew about Sara’s organization, which is such a powerful and simple idea, you know, to actualize compassionate action in our daily lives. It’s really amazing.”
As far as plans for future shows and releases go, Faierman believes that “we live in the age of the single. We’re trying to be conscious about it, and we’re not in a rush to make a full album.”
