Floodplane

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Floodplane
Origin	Ames, Iowa, USA
Years active	1994-Current
Genres	Rock, Jazz fusion, Progressive Rock
Members	Billy Kearney Gwendolyn Page Justin Karl Todd Cumming
Past members	Ross Pinski (1994-2000) Joe Leonard (1994-1999) Darrin Mathis (1994-1997)

Floodplane is an American rock band noted for jamming and improvisation based out of Des Moines,Iowa. The band's current four members have performed together for the better part of 10 years. Their music has elements of a wide variety of genres, including rock, jazz, bluegrass, heavy metal, folk, blues, progressive rock, acoustic, and classical.

Floodplane groove oriented sound, with very strong vocal harmonies. The band consists of Billy Kearney(vocals/guitar), Todd Cumming(drums/vocals), Gwen Page(keyboard/vocals), and Justin Karl(bass/vocals. Floodplane is ever evolving, and has a large fanbase in the midwest.

[edit] History

Floodplane was founded by Joe Leonard (bass) and Darrin Mathis (drums). They placed a wanted ad in a music shop looking for guitar players, and that is how they found Billy and Ross Pimpski. The foursome began writing material, and playing locally in Ames.

Darrin left the band after a couple of years, and was replaced by Todd Cumming. Billy knew Todd from their work together with Great Big Freak. Bill Kearney: Born into a musical family (dad and nearly everyone on his side of the family played guitar and mom, the flute), Billy's earliest musical memories are of singing harmonies with his folks to Bill Monroe and Everly Brothers tunes when he was 4.

At age 11, he got his first electric guitar and began playing flute in grade school. Billy took part in vocal classes every year of school (K through 12), and played drums in high school marching band. For about two months of his senior year he even played guitar in the jazz band.

He was involved in eight short lived projects before joining Floodplane, has been playing guitar since '76, and gigging live since '88. Billy is Floodplane's main vocalist and songwriter, and when the music starts flowing, he shines.

Todd Cumming: drums, vocals When he was around 8 or 9 years old, Todd's older brother (a guitar rocker) showed him the drum beat to a B.T.O. song and the rest, as they say, is history.

Todd was always surrounded by music (besides his brother's influence, his father sang in the church, his aunt is currently a vocal director) and taught himself to play by working his way through every rock song ever played on AM and album-oriented FM rock radio.

He built his live chops by working his way through 5 bands ranging from punk and metal to Stones-style rock and rap, but he truly grew as a musician when he joined Floodplane in January of '97. Todd's rock-steady rhythm lays the solid foundation that allows Floodplane to soar. Image:Http://floodplane.net/images/band-todd.jpg

Gwen Page: keyboards, vocals Gwen started playing piano at age 6, moving on to become the youngest member of the Iowa Composer's Guild at age 10.

She found interest in jazz while in middle school and joined the jazz band upon entering high school. During her college years, she taught jazz lessons to aspiring jazz musicians while also playing in the Iowa State Jazz Band for five years.

Gwen met Justin at ISU and started the group Grandpa's Garden. After the Garden split up, Gwen sat in with a number of groups before joining Floodplane in the fall of 1997.

Her musical influences include: Thelonius Monk, Phish, Oscar Peterson, String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Little Feat, Grateful Dead and Steely Dan, to name a few. The Floodplane flies with the aid of Gwen's fleet fingers. Image:Http://floodplane.net/images/band-gwen.jpg

Justin Karl: bass, vocals

Justin has always loved music, from playing air-drums along with the Muppets as a toddler, to being formally trained on the alto-sax in the fourth grade. As school progressed, Justin found more and more instruments to stir his desire to play music. From the tenor and baritone sax, to the trombone, and on to the tuba, Justin played the instruments that needed to be played to make the band complete.

When he was 17 he started playing the guitar, by the time he was 20 he was playing in a punk band – not exactly his cup of tea, but music is music. When a group of friends got together to start a new band, they realized they needed a bass player, and true to form, Justin was there to answer the call, and that is when he first picked up the bass guitar.

When the chance to fill in for Floodplane’s founding bass player (Joe Leonard) came up in 1998, Justin jumped at the chance. A year later Justin was asked to fill in on a permanent basis, and has been keeping Floodplane’s low-end grounded ever since. Image:Http://floodplane.net/images/band-justin.jpg

More information can be found at www.floodplane.net