On any given Saturday afternoon, the piercing sounds of Seventh Day Breakdown can be heard from cars and pedestrians as they pass by senior Max Sorg’s house. As the garage door rolls up, the daylight reveals four bikes hanging from the ceiling, old lamp fixtures against the walls and small buckets for storing used bottle caps. Below the bikes, a drum set, two guitars, mic stands, and piles of wires and cords surround four guys. They are seniors Sorg, Wells Lucas Santo and juniors Adi Nag of MVHS, and Kieren Patel of St. Francis High School.
Their story starts here.
Do not let the image of grungy teenagers rocking out in a garage fool you — Seventh Day Breakdown is not your average high school band. They are consumed by their music. They hardly notice us as we walk around the garage. Sorg is on lead vocals and guitar with Santo on bass. Patel strattles a black and Nag sits in the back of the garage, docked into a crimson red drumset.
Their sound is a reflection of the band’s members and their diverse backgrounds —an unexpected melange of classic, hard, and alternative rock with overtones of jazz.
“We merge together so that we can jam together” Nag said. They also write together, spending much of their time before recording this summer and the months prior sitting in Coffee Society with their guitars.
The music is personal and speaks of moving on in “Parting Words”, unfulfilled romance in “Picture Perfect World” and regret in “Impulse”. Unlike most fledgling bands, they made the choice to perform their own self-written and composed music, as opposed to covering other bands’ work.
“We like different songs,” Santos said. “But we also like creating things on our own.”
And it shows; it’s plain to see the connection they have with their songs as they perform their own creations.
Whenever I, I think of you,
I remember all of the shit we used to do
All these things I’ll never look back upon
All these words I used to drink
Forever gone.
As they end their song “Impulse” for us, we see that they are not a band interpreting older music and trying to make it their own — it is them, expressing their own thoughts, something that, in music nowadays, is hard to find. It is refreshing.
Within the band, Sorg is known for his stage presence, echoing his inspiration from Billy Joe Armstrong. Santo is the self-proclaimed hipster in skinny jeans and leather boots, Patel cracks the jokes and Nag wears the snarky t-shirts.
But to call Seventh Day Breakdown fledgling would overlook the fact that they have a professionally recorded and mastered EP up for release, as well as various local performances under their belt. For two days during the second week of last summer, the band met at Sorg’s house at 6 a.m. to drive in his Mini Cooper, U-Haul-ing their equipment to the studios of Tiny Telephone Recording in the industrial area of San Francisco to create their first EP. The band was greeted by house engineer Ian Pellicci, a weathered man with a memorable moustache. Pellici has worked with Yann Tiersen and Rogue Wave.
“I was sitting there going, ‘God I am so not ready for anything’” Sorg said. Nag clarifies, saying that the group could only afford the $800 to rent a studio for two days. But in those two days, the band recorded all four songs in their EP, a feat that traditionally would’ve taken four times as long. The band spent all of the first day recording and the next day mastering their tracks.
“We went from a rough track to a final thing, where we were like ‘Yes! We did it’” Nag said. “It’s stressful, you hear everything you do wrong..we could’ve done so much…but I was there the whole time to make sure we didn’t auto-tune.”
You can hear Seventh Day Breakdown’s EP, Shades of Gray and all four songs at Battle of the Bands, Open Mic night, and at La Pluma’s Coffee Night. You can also follow their Facebook fan page. CDs are available through the band members, but they plan to set up a bandcamp account.
