Metro Pulse/Music/Senryu

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What:
Senryu

When:
April 4, 6, 9, and 10

Where:
Circle Park (American Cancer Society Benefit), Hannah's in the Old City (acoustic show), Black Box Theatre (Valleyfest kickoff party), and Patrick Sullivans (with Joey's Loss)

Cost:
free, free, $5 and $5 (respectively)

Senryu strives for a hip sound and a cool look

by Leslie Wylie

Wil Wright's new shoes are the stuff of every hipster's wildest fashion fantasy: yellow-toed retro-trendy artifacts, vintage store finds of a lifetime, patent leather rocket ships to Planet Cool. Add some polyester, a funky necktie and an instrument of choice, and you have the dress code for Wright's band, Senryu.

"I've always been drawn more to production bands and look bands," says Wright, the 23-year-old frontman. "I really like the old mod rock groups, bands that dressed alike, like the Beatles. I always thought it was like, 'These guys are on my team.' Especially on the local level, it's such a rival school situation—I just like the idea of my team wearing the same jerseys."

But writing Senryu off as "a fashion band with a music problem" doesn't do it justice. The local pop/rock quartet, whose name hails from a movement of sarcastic Japanese poets, just hopes that its signature look will help it to stand out in a saturated local music scene. Comprised of Wright (vocals, guitar), Dan Davis (bass), Steven Rogers (conga, keyboards) and Seth Barber (drums, rain, melodica), Senryu has been pouring its energy into touring and creating new music since its inception in 2000.

So far, the effort has tangibly resulted in three EPs, one full-length album (2002's Stars and Garters) and the inclusion of its song "Kitty" on 94.3 Extreme Radio's compilation album South East Exports 3. The band is also currently recording a new album, A Bath of Broken Glass, set for an early fall release.

"Everything has grown so much," Wright says. "We just wanted to make a big kid album as opposed to Stars and Garters, which is a lot of fun, and we had a lot of fun making it, but it wasn't too expensive and it sounds that way. We're at a really crucial point right now where the right recording could open a lot of doors."

Compared to Stars and Garters' bright, hook-driven pop sensibilities, the album-in-progress seems to be taking a turn for the edgy. New songs like "Stretched Across Her Back" and "Hydroplane" are rich, haunting compositions that forego the band's trademark catchy romantic idealism for a newfound musical maturity and depth.

Wright attributes the band's stylistic shape-shifting to its survival of recent growing pains, including the amicable exit of two band members. In their absence, the remaining members—Wright, Barber and Rogers—took a month off to reevaluate Senryu's future.

"There was a point when we weren't sure that things were going to keep going," says Wright. "Coming out of that, the attitude was just totally different. It was just a lot more face-forward and focused. You have to grow up a lot to push through what we pushed through, and in order to make that transition as a band you have to lose a lot of baby teeth."

After making the commitment to keep itself intact, the band recruited Davis, a musician friend who didn't mind adhering to Senryu's fashion scruples.

Wright laughs: "Actually, that was the second question I asked him. I said 'Dan do you want to be in Senryu?," and he said 'yeah.' Then I asked him if he had a tie, and he said 'yeah.' So that's how Dan came into the picture."

Also in the vein of "what doesn't kill a band makes it stronger," Wright notes that Senryu has been better received in other cities—Atlanta, Asheville, Chattanooga and Nashville, to name a few—than it has been in its own hometown. As a result, it plays three to four times as many shows out of town as it does in Knoxville.

But now, instead of the lyrical escapism the band leaned toward in Stars and Garters (the waxing refrain of "to hell with Tennessee" in the song "Maybe on the Moon," for instance), Senryu is now choosing to buck up and face its challenges head on.

"We don't belong here, but it's just too easy to up and leave," says Wright. "I think Knoxville has given us leather skin. Being a local band makes you bullet-proof or it'll kill you, you know, because if you can survive here, you can survive anywhere."