Matt Drenik was a child of the ’60s Rolling Stones and the ’70s Stooges.
Now he carves his own path with his Austin, Texas-based band LIONS. The band plays March 31 at Northgate Tavern.
Drenik plays guitar and sings for the band, something he said he had always wanted to do.
He picked up guitar at 17.
He considers the guitar his first instrument, even though he played piano for years.
“I didn’t count piano as an instrument because it wasn’t really a band instrument, I didn’t think,” Drenik said. “It was more of a personal instrument. Guitar was more about, you know, being in a band.”
Once he mastered guitar, he started playing with various bands and ended up in LIONS.
“[LIONS is] basically a rock ‘n’ roll band with hints of psychedelic and heavier atmosphere,” Drenik said.
Everyone in the band had already been part of other bands, and all of LIONS grew up listening to lighter music.
“We’d all been in bands before that were going after a Rolling Stones thing,” Drenik said. “When you’re growing up, you’re listening to the Stones and the Stooges, so the first thing you want to do is imitate those bands.”
He said as a musician he has influences but keeps his music original.
“You take hints of that and make it your own,” Drenik said.
Drenik said he feels that the current state of music is beneficial to smaller bands who want to climb up from independent labels.
“I think [music today] gives a lot of underground bands the means to get their music out there, with Internet sites and independent labels are becoming bigger,” Drenik said.
But he said because of the ease of exposure, many bands that do not deserve respect seem to find it.
“It’s hit or miss,” Drenik said. “[A few are] diamonds-in-the-rough stuff.”
He said the band is excited about playing Baton Rouge because it reminds the members of home.
“[Baton Rouge] is a college town, and Austin is a college town as well,” Drenik said. “It seemed like the right kind of market for us.”
Drenik said he has always loved playing music for the spiritual side of it, and he does not plan on stopping any time soon.
“There’s a great sense of spirit that I get out of it,” Drenik said. “I think that my reason is more of a romantic notion, kind of like why writers wrote in the early 20th century. It’s not really for anything else besides having movements and spiritual awakenings in your songs that fulfill you.”
 
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