Photo by Ryan Cunningham

At Skull Studio, a vintage drum kit, array of microphones, guitars and other musician candy sit in a warehouse-style soundstage. A sleepy looking Matt Ten Clay (recording engineer, also member of the Wildfire, and Matt Ten Clay and the Howlers) led me to a funky couch and sat me directly across from local musicians Kyle Colter and Dan Wier, and a window with a beautiful view of of the Grand River.

"Doing the one-man band thing for a while, I would try to do as many things as I could," Colter said. "I'd have a tambourine on the floor that I'd kick, and a shaker in my hand as I played guitar."

Colter, formerly of The Mighty Narwhale, has decided to flesh out his solo project, The Pistolbrides, to a full-band format, complete with help from members of fellow local music wizards Lazy Genius and Chip Fundy. Ten Clay's Skull Studio is where the band has done its first official recording together.

"We're actually doing a split (vinyl) seven-inch. It will be Lazy Genius and the Pistolbrides," said Wier, the drummer for both bands. "It's all [going to be] recorded here, so it's going to have a great continuity. I've always wanted to be on vinyl, so I'm pretty excited about it."

Pistolbrides myspace.com/pistolbrides Skull Studio Matt Ten Clay This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Both bands will be contributing two songs each to the seven-inch, and the release date is tentatively in August.

"Basically, we're all just huge music fanatics," Wier said. "We all collect vinyl. We're all in different bands, like I'm in Lazy Genius and now Subtle Bodies. John and Joe are in Chip Fundy. Joe also plays with Jake Stilsons band."

The members find it difficult juggling so many projects, but it is ultimately worth it. Colter has been the impetus and creator of the project, but he by no means has an iron fist about what the band does with his material, and this is a great starting point for some real creativity.

"I usually have been writing at least the skeleton of the song, but we always cut it up and mesh it a little bit," Colter said.

"We'll usually end up talking about what we like that we hear from different members of the band," Wier said. "We're never afraid to actually go through the motions and trying something random and seeing if it sounds better."

Be on the lookout for some great collaborative sounds coming out later this summer, but in the meantime check out some of Colter's recordings at myspace.com/pistolbrides.