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THE REAL CALIFORNIA

[edit] The Beginning (2000-2002)

The Real California started as some home recordings by Ron Copenhaver. You could also argue that The Real California really got its start in Rittman, Ohio when Ron and Donne Copenhaver started to play music together. You may know Ron and Donne from the Ohio rock band The Peachbones. They began recording songs on a 4 track recorder with the intention of having those songs become Peachbones songs. When it was decided that The Peachbones were maybe not the most appropriate musical vessel for the songs, Ron decided to start a new band with his brother Donne on drums. (In the beginning, it was Peachbones' bassist Vern Miller playing bass as well).

Donne comments, "The Real California could almost be looked at as something that really started when Ron and I started playing music as young teenagers. Being brothers--and twins--makes music very intuitive for us. Because of this, we've pretty much been on the same page musically for as long as we've been playing music. TRC, more than any project we've ever been involved with, is truly what we've wanted to be doing as musicians. TRC is a band that allows our range of influence to emerge without worrying about fitting a certain style of rock. It is what it is. If an album has both Neil Young and Radiohead influences on it, or even within the same song, then that's what that song is. So TRC is really about just allowing that diversity of influences to find their way out."

In terms of songwriting, the key was to have it be distinct from The Peachbones, but also to be honest about that creative process and realize that there would be some elements that would be similar. Says Ron, "What I really wanted to do was have these songs be Peachbones songs . . . but at the time, The Peachbones were too deep into the whole, you know, 'Alt Country' thing to really do what I wanted to do with these songs. In '99 or 2000, when I actually started singing, I was really into bands that were just so far from what was influencing me and Don for Peachones material. Introducing a song heavily influenced by, say, Red House Painters or Idaho or Pedro The Lion just did not work for The Peachbones at the time, but we didn't just want to scrap the songs either, so we starting rehearsing very casually as The Real California. It was so different for us at the time, I wasn't even sure if Donne wanted to do it, but he did."

Putting down the acoustic guitar and strapping on an electric guitar is what really took these songs to a new level. "I didn't really know how to sing, so I would just talk and move the capo on the guitar to the place where it was easiest for me to hold the note. When I recorded the very early Real Cali demos, it was just me singing and playing guitar into a crappy Radioshack mic about a foot away from me. It's really hard to mask any vocal miscues that way . . . but believe me, I tried!" Ron explains how these songs started, "What I would do is just rehearse to the song a few times and then record them. These are basically live recordings because they're all one take, with no editing or cutting and pasting. If I made it through the first two verses but messed up on the last chorus, I would redo the entire song. Once they were recorded, Don would track the drums and Vern would track the bass or I would track the bass or whatever." It was only after Ron started to play the songs on electric guitar that the signature Real Cali sound was created. "Most people can't imagine how playing an acoustic guitar changes the dynamics of every other instrument in the band. I liked how these songs sounded recorded like that, but I did not like how it sounded when it came time to do a live show. To me, the songs were much more complex and interesting with an electric guitar. There were new textures and depth to the songs with an electric guitar."

It didn't take Ron and Donne long to lock in and agree on a solid vision for The Real California. The music was much slower and darker than that of The Peachbones. It was also more romantic and introspective than any Peachbones material to date. When the band realized it was going to be booking shows and possibly doing a full-length record, settling on a creative vision could not have come at a more perfect time. "For us, being in a band has always been about the music first. Nothing else is as important as the music," says Donne. In short, The Real Cali was a way for Ron and Donne to make the music they wanted to make, with no compromise or loss of integrity. Ron would later say, "One of the things I love about being in The Real Cali is all of the little things don't get blown up anymore. For example, we might have a half an hour discussion in The Peachbones about how long a song should be. In The Real Cali, we let the music decide how long the song will be. We just don't care about things like that any more. If the song will be best at 10 minutes long, so be it. If it's best at 1:45, so be it."

Though Ron started the songwriting for what would become The Real California in 1999-2000, the actual band did not get started until he and Donne started rehearsing. "I consider Don and I to be the co-founders of The Real California. It may have all started as a singer/songwriter kind of thing, but that's not what I'm about; that's not what we're about. I wanted it to be a band, you know, a real band. You can't do that when it's just you. So when Don and I started rehearsing these songs, it made sense to use Vern on the bass and Andrew on the guitar. It was convenient, sure, but they're good musicians too so it's a win-win situation."

When Vern Miller left The Peachbones, he also left The Real California. The only logical choice was to go with a long-time friend of Andrew's named Jose Ortiz. The lineup was officially set. "Once we knew who would be in the band, it certainly made it easier for us to go in the direction we wanted to go," says Donne.

[edit] Finding An Identity (2002-2004)

After rehearsing in the basement for a few months, the band finally book its first show. It was an opening slot before a Peachbones show. This would eventually lead to headlining shows at many of the same venues The Peachbones had played. The Real California was quickly developed its own sound and identity separate from The Peachbones, though both Ron and Donne admit that The Peachbones was their main priority musically. "Our band is The Peachbones," says Donne. "The Real Cali will become our first priority when The Peachbones no longer exist." The Real California was, after all, a side-project band. There was never any question about that. Donne advises, "When we do our booking, it's always around The Peachbones' schedule. And so far, it hasn't been a problem. In fact, some of the show The Real Cali has gotten are ones that The Peachbones couldn't do because of Matt's unavailability."

With more and more live shows under their belt, The Real California had developed a reputation for being a dynamic live act with considerably more improvisation than in the recordings. Ron says, "We have some songs that are pretty long and those songs become even longer when we play them live. Our approach is pretty laid-back, actually. If we're feeling like we need to, you know, 'Floyd' things out or have an epic guitar solo a la Neil Young, then we'll do that." The Real California's darker side also shows live with songs like BS & L and The Gamma Knife. "Don and I have always been huge Soundgarden fans and I think that their influence on us is way more obvious in The Real California than in The Peachbones."

Says Donne, "TRC is a band that allows our range of influence to emerge without worrying about fitting a certain style of rock. It is what it is. If an album has both Neil Young and Radiohead influences on it, or even within the same song, then that's what that song is. So TRC is really about just allowing that diversity of influences to find their way out." This is no something that was so easily done with The Peachbones because The Peachbones had made such a strong name for themselves as a hard-edged roots rock band with punk rock and country influences. Introducing a more ambient, melodic, and darker sound would have been too much of a stretch. "I think it would have alienated a lot of the fans of The Peachbones. Even when we released Revenant we saw some of the 'old-school' fan base become turned off by the sound of Revenant. Everyone was expecting Big, Ohio Part II and Revenant was just not that," Ron says.

Ron adds, "We know who we are as musicians. The Real Cali is, as Don has mentioned, really what we want to be doing as musicians in a band: we want to keep pushing ourselves to become better artists, better songwriters, and we want to make music that we would like if we heard someone else doing what we're doing. We always have to ask ourselves if we were objective listeners without our same experiences and music taste and musical ear, would we like what The Real California does? That answer always has to be yes. The day it isn't is the day we all move on to something else."

[edit] Something Must Break and a Film Score

The wonders of the online world of myspace.com afforded The Real California their first real taste at being a band separate from The Peachbones. Ron had met Brian Carter via the LA band Idaho's website. On this site was an ongoing blog/message board. Brian Carter, a long-time fan of the band Idaho invited several musicians from the Idaho message board to submit demos for consideration on an Idaho tribute album called Something Must Break: Volume I. This was a special opportunity because only a few individuals were asked to submit material. Ron contacted Brian and submitted two songs from The Peachbones and The Real California. Brian later contacted Ron and advised that he chose the two songs from The Real California: Feel It and BS & L. These two songs were selected as the first two tracks of the entire album! Other than having people from all over the world hear your songs, the next best thing about having songs on this album was that you shared space with the legendary Jeff Martin and Idaho! You can check out the album by going to: www.somethingmustbreak.com.

The compilation/tribute to Idaho was not the only hint at some success. Ron was also contacted by long-time friend and filmmaker Phil Mozolak to write and record a film score to a documentary that he was working on. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Ron wrote and recorded some acoustic songs (all instrumental) and submitted them for consideration. Mozolak was very pleased with the music and the music made the final edits of the film's scenes. The film was actually two short films, one of which was 100% documentary. The other was a mix sort of historical fictional film. The documentary version of the film was entered into several independent film festivals and actually took first place for best original soundtrack in a Phildelphia film festival. The films, entitled The Goody Goody and Love & Omelets, are available by contacting Phil Mozolak at mozestudios@gmail.com.

"It was really neat to be apart of the soundtrack. I was working with Moze on another project, but it never really got off the ground, but this one was really fun. I was really honored to be asked to be a part of it. It's very meaningful when you get to interact with your friends on an artistic level and on a creative level. It's something I've always wanted to do. And being a part of Something Must Break was a really great opportunity for us. It made me feel like The Real California was something more than just a side-project. I hope that we get more of these types of opportunities in the future."