Rock ’n’ roll hoochie koo
Township bring ‘Home’ the proverbial power ballad
PROFILE. For all their rock bravado, Township has some soft spots. Three tracks into their first full-length album, “Coming Home,” the Boston four-piece cranks up the cheese with the lighter-ready ballad, “Baby Rock Me.”
“Oh, yes,” laughs frontman Marc Pinansky. “Carter and I had both been in each other’s bands and we were mixing the Tulsa record,” he explains of former Township guitarist Carter Tanton’s other band. “We said, ‘Wouldn’t that be funny if we just took the drum track to one of the songs and made up a whole ’nother song while we’re sitting here?’”
Tanton started crooning the improvised words, “Baby rock me.”
“I was like, ‘Well, what’s funny to you is inspiring to me,’ and then I went in the other room and wrote it,” says Pinansky. “It ended up being our ‘Dream On’ track.”
The remainder of the album is built on classic rock touchstones — the guitar hero worship of Led Zeppelin, the hardened pop edges of Thin Lizzy and The Who’s three-chord salute clangs throughout.
Township’s sonic bend is a continuation of Pinansky’s first band, Runner and the Thermodynamics, which earned a “Band to Watch” tip from Rolling Stone in 2005, and immediately imploded. Getting back on the horse wasn’t easy, Pinansky admits.
“With Runner, there was a lot of holding on. There was a fast rise up and a fast fall down,” he says. “It’s like when a relationship is ending. It’s the most painful thing and you don’t want to go through it again. So, with the next band, you want to make sure it’s the one.”
Within a year, Pinansky found the ones in the form of drummer Greg Beadle, bassist John Sheeran and Tanton, who was replaced last year by Matt Smart.
As the main songwriter in Runner, Pinansky admits he was “kind of a control freak.”
“Because I wanted it to work so bad, but people sort of started to shut down. They would defer to what I wanted, but that was one of the main things I realized — my own limitations.”
With Township he vowed for more collaboration.
“I found people that were inspiring to me and help to push songs in a different direction and bring themselves to it,” he says. “My ideas can’t be more than a starting point.”
Township
With KidNapKin, Handsome Jack and Chris Warren of Viva Viva
Friday 9:15 p.m.
T.T. the Bear’s Place
10 Brookline St., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$10, 18+, 617-492-BEAR
www.ttthebears.com