For fans of the New York City based groove quartet U-Melt, seeing is believing. Anyone who has witnessed the sheer spontaneity and energy poured into a U-Melt performance knows that each musical experience is always surprising and never like the last. Luckily for Boston residents (and Tufts students), the band is on its way to Beantown tonight for a live show at Bill's Bar, near Fenway Park, as part of their 12-state tour taking them from the East Coast to the Rockies and back again.
It's a tight, hectic schedule lasting only a little over a month, but that's the way the foursome likes it.
"By the end of the tour, part of me is very happy to be going home and getting the hell out of that van," keyboardist Zac Lasher said. "But on the other side of the coin, we find that the more shows we play in a row the tighter our performances get. We develop this unspoken communication where we all know what to do. By the end of the tour we're just on fire; we don't even have to warm up so much, because we're already tuned into each other."
This almost telepathic musical connection allows Lasher's keyboards to blend seamlessly with the work of his cohorts: Rob Salzer on guitar, Adam Bendy on bass and George Miller on drums. The group debuted in 2004 with its album "The Unbelievable Meltdown," a title which was the band's original full name, Lasher said.
Having emerged from the remnants of two defunct bands in the late summer of 2003, the foursome hit the recording studio early but without a name.
"We had a week of 14-hour days of recording and decided that we needed to come out of it with an album and a name," Lasher said.
That intensity and hard work brought the band to where it is today, and U-Melt has racked up some 600 shows within just the last five years. "We started out all together playing shows knowing only about five songs collectively and having to play two sets," Lasher said. "It was trial by fire from the beginning and we never really stopped that pace."
U-Melt likes to keep things freestyle and fast-paced when performing. The band's tracks, most recently from its 2006 album "The I's Mind," are a fusion of different genres.
"I know that's probably not the most descriptive thing for people to hear about our sound, but we do draw inspiration from Latin rhythm, classical song form, jazz harmony, electronic music ... just a melting pot," Lasher said. "You can tell we were children of the '80s and grew up playing video games."
As a young adult, Lasher translated the classic rock of his parents' generation into more progressive rock, seeking out tracks that were more "dramatic and composed." Along with Salzer, he handles much of the songwriting for the group.
Lasher is no stranger to the Boston area either. He studied theater at Emerson College, a major that may explain his penchant for the freeform and spontaneous when it comes to music.
"It takes people a few times [of] seeing us live to really get an idea of what we do," Lasher said. "It differs from show to show. Maybe we play a more rock-based set or mostly dance-electronica. We get a vibe from the room to feel what people might want to hear and we also just play what we feel like at the time."
What can audiences expect for their Boston show? "We've played at Bill's Bar before and it's going to be a good, intimate show," he said. "But probably pretty packed -- it's Friday night, so we'll be keeping it upbeat, keeping the dance party going."
For those looking to join that party, stop by Bill's Bar on Lansdowne Street tonight at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
