Cavalier Rose
- Location: Brooklyn, NY
- Website:
- Bio: Cavalier Rose
Heather Christian – vocals, keys
Gibbs Drinon – guitar
Chase McGowan – bass
Sarah Tomek – drums
Cavalier Rose is a Brooklyn based rock band that finds itself somewhere between old American ... (more) - Bio: Cavalier Rose
Heather Christian – vocals, keys
Gibbs Drinon – guitar
Chase McGowan – bass
Sarah Tomek – drums
Cavalier Rose is a Brooklyn based rock band that finds itself somewhere between old American tradition and uncharted depths of the future.
Cavalier Rose formed during the winter of 2009. After getting together a handful of times at each others' apartments to exchange musical ideas, the group gathered in the basement of Sarah's house for its first full band rehearsal in late February. As it was immediately apparent that this collaboration was yielding prolific musical creation, a recording session and gig were scheduled.
In late March – after just 7 full band rehearsals – the band traveled to a 19th century sheep farm on the Connecticut River to record. Here, they tracked 6 of their songs with the help of a friend and engineer, Dave Raymond, in his farmhouse studio he calls Epaphras Bissell Sound. Three days later, they returned to New York, where they played their first gig to a capacity crowd at Pianos in the Lower East Side. While these three months marked the band’s inception, the seeds of Cavalier Rose can be traced back to a college dorm room.
Gibbs and Chase, having grown up in New Hampshire and Connecticut respectively, met in Philadelphia while they were undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania. Living together all four years, they spent much of their time playing music with one another, both on and off stage. After graduating, they moved to Brooklyn to continue their musical journey and meet and play with other musicians. There they met Sarah, who had been a highly regarded drummer in the Asbury Park, NJ music scene since the age of 16. The three immediately felt an explosive musical connection and eventually cut an instrumental demo in Sarah's basement of four original ideas with the intention of attracting a singer. Upon the suggestion of a friend, Gibbs and Chase went to a small bar in the Lower East Side to see Heather perform.
The daughter of a blues musician and a dancer, Heather grew up in Southern Mississippi and moved to New York to study music and theater at NYU. She was now singing and playing piano around the city. While her music was of a different attitude and style than the music they were currently creating, Gibbs and Chase immediately heard hers as the voice of Cavalier Rose. They contacted her later that night and included a link to the demos they had recorded in Sarah’s basement several weeks earlier.
Immediately taken by their music and intense passion, Heather responded to Gibbs, Chase, and Sarah. Soon after, the four spent an evening together discussing music, art, and life. As the night came to an end, an intrinsic connection felt within the group had become fully evident. Cavalier Rose had formed.
With Dave’s help, the band self-produced and mixed Primary Colors, the 6-song EP they recorded at his farm. Primary Colors was made available for free on Thursday, May 28th via the band’s website. That night, they played their second ever show (again, to a packed house at Pianos) in support of the EP’s release. All 150 copies of the EP they pressed were gone by the end of the gig. Two weeks later, Cavalier Rose was named "NYC Artist of the Month" by The Deli Magazine.
In these very early stages of Cavalier Rose’s existence, they have merely begun to scratch the surface of their musical potential. They are working perpetually on a wealth of new material and shaping their sound. With this momentum behind them, Cavalier Rose is beginning to hone in on their goal: to change the face of music. (less)
