The Drawing Board

With a name that imparts the carefully wrought nature of their utterly unique Technicolor chamber pop, Austin, Texas quintet, The Drawing Board, are finding themselves on a collision course with the indie rock spotlight. Vocalist/Guitarist Justin Tapp and his brother, drummer/vocalist Brandon moved from LA to Austin in 2003 after the dissolution of the LA based power pop trio The Other Half. In Austin, the brothers eventually hooked up with local singer/songwriter David Vassallo and keyboardist Dave Lewis. Bassist/vocalist Adam Luikart joined after his band, Austin favorites Friends of Lizzy, called it quits in mid 2006. The fully formed quintet put the finishing touches on their album and immediately began playing shows. Like the bastard sons of Jellyfish and Elvis Costello, they have delivered a dizzying, hook laden, harmony drenched debut which only hints at the firepower they bring to bear in the live show. This complicated record dangles indie rock over the lounge precipice and chuckles while it squirms. Originally intended as the follow up to The Other Half’s 2001 self titled release, Clear to the Far Side of Way Over Yonder would see many changes in its’ slow evolution. Sessions for the album began in a Silverlake rehearsal studio in late 2002. In the spring of 2003, The Other Half dissolved and the brothers Tapp moved back to Austin, Texas. Here recording began anew in the spare bedroom of Justin’s North Austin apartment. “I was trying to achieve a certain level of thematic perfection”, Justin says of the process, “I wanted these songs to sound exactly as I imagined them and I wasn’t going to stop until I was there.” Throughout the artistic trial and error, the original theme remained crystalline; “We were far away from home, dealing with the transition from adolescence to adulthood. We wanted the album to feel like a journey, there and back again.”