Newfangled Theory: Freeport’s Newest and Best—Did Someone Say Only?—Rock Band

By Chris Manson November 15, 2007 Issue

“Once you’re gone, you can’t come back,” Neil Young sang on Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) a/k/a Rust Never Sleeps. But Derek Givans—who spent 10 years in an unsuccessful Virginia band and quit music for a spell—proves you can come back. He’s the front man for the new band Newfangled Theory, four young men who intentionally or not include the Young song in their mix of classic, ‘90s, and “jam” rock.

After a four-year layoff, Givans teamed up with bassist Matt Drouillard and drummer Brantley Galloway, both relative newcomers to their instruments. The band has been together less than a year.

Matt Miller, who won the 2004 Florida State Fiddle Competition at age 13, adds electric violin to every song and incorporates distortion and wah-wah effects for heavier stuff from the AC/DC and Rolling Stones songbooks. Miller, a classically trained musician, fiddled with Panama City’s Grasscutters and the DeFuniak Down Home Band before giving rock and roll a try.

“It translates really well,” the 17-year-old Miller says. “I was lucky I had an open-minded teacher who was real supportive. I learned to appreciate classical music, the technique you can’t find anywhere else.” But this is more fun, right? “You can never play Hendrix at a classical recital,” Miller laughs.

A month after a New Year’s Eve gig with Givans and Galloway working as a duo, Newfangled Theory proper debuted at a party for 50 people. They steadily found their way into local bars and restaurants—Big City Grill in Freeport, Shades at the Loop, Seacrest Beach North Amphitheater, Spinnakers Beach Club, and Fatty’s Sandwich Shop.

Today they’re back at Bud & Alley’s Tarpon Club. There’s quite a bit of spillover from the wine festival going on at Seaside as a handful of enthusiasts come in toting long-stemmed glasses.

At the table next to me are Miller’s parents, Candy and David, and his fraternal twin, William, who plays piano. “We’re family groupies. Every band’s got to have them,” Candy says.

Miller’s violin gives the band a noticeable edge on the opening number, Tom Petty’s Mary Jane’s Last Dance. Givans spits out the lyrics with the required amount of rock attitude, and the rhythm section sounds pretty tight. The band shuffles through Led Zeppelin’s Your Time Is Gonna Come—hardly anyone’s first pick for a Zep cover, but an interesting one, and of course, most of the crowd knows it. Givans has a voice perfectly suited to southern rock (Can’t You See, originally by the Marshall Tucker Band, is particularly effective), but no way is this guy going to limit himself. With each song, Givans’ intensity and range increases.

I also like the way he back-sells the songs, even though most of them are familiar to the patrons. Newfangled Theory seem to have quickly developed a knack for knowing what songs will work with the diverse (age, I mean) crowds who come to see them. “Last Sunday when they played here, there was an old couple, old enough to be my parents,” Candy tells me. “And they were dancing to AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Cheap. It was wonderful to watch.”

Miller throws in some psychedelic touches for the Grateful Dead number. The version of Gregg Allman’s Midnight Rider offers still more evidence of Miller’s keen instincts, specifically the little boom-chicka-boom he plays during the verses. Land of the Free, a Givans original, comes off as a sort of funky protest song. Miller saws along furiously, and this is the first real display of the rhythm section’s fiery enthusiasm. While the song owes a lot to one of the composer’s influences, Lenny Kravitz, the scat singing is all Givans’.

“I think a lot of music on the radio has no soul,” Drouillard says. “It’s like going to the grocery store and buying a frozen pizza.” And if you’ve been keeping up with the news, you know that stuff can kill you.

Friends of The Beat:
• Dave Marsh. The editor of Rock & Rap Confidential and host of Sirius Radio’s Kick out the Jams has just published The Beatles’ Second Album, part of Rodale Books’ Rock of Ages series. Marsh gives the 11 tracks on the Americanized disc the thorough analysis his (and the Fab Four’s) fans expect, but also offers insight into shady record company practices.
• George Soule. Our paths crossed when he worked in the news department at WQLT-FM in Florence, Ala. But songwriting and performing have always been his passions, and from the sound of Soule’s long-awaited Take a Ride, the fire is burning stronger than ever. Available from iTunes and other online music shops.

The Beat Recommends:
• Bettye Lavette: The Scene of the Crime (Anti-) Jason Isbell left the Drive-By Truckers and put out a fine solo album earlier this year, Sirens of the Ditch. Then his old band mates teamed up with our greatest living soul queen (sorry, Aretha). Both discs were recorded in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and not since the 1960s has so much great music emerged from the one-time “Hit Recording Capital of the World.”
• Youssou N’dour: Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch) If you liked the Senegalese vocalist’s version of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy—one of the few worthwhile tracks from the recent charity disc Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur—this is as good a place as any to further explore the wonder that is N’dour.
• Oxford American 2007 Southern Music CD. The 26-track collection—included with the always fantastic Music Issue—might be OA’s most diverse set yet, with artists well-known (Dwight Yoakam, Thelonious Monk), forgotten (Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks), unknown (most of the others), and unexpected (Mississippi rapper David Banner).

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