The five members of Kinetix attended DU's Lamont School of Music. Photo: Wayne Armstrong
They’re tired, virtually homeless, and living their dream. It’s been a good year for the Kinetix.
For the five members of Kinetix, a funk/rock band that sprang from DU’s Lamont School of Music, it’s all about the music and the road and doing what they love. As their passion for beat and melody led them from small towns to DU, it’s taken them back out on the road now as graduates, playing everything from dive bars to pulsating music clubs and huge festivals.
“Even if all we ever did was play small clubs, we’d still be doing what we wanted,” guitarist Jordan Linit says. “This is all we’ve ever wanted to do.”
The five range in age from 22 to 24. Linit and his childhood friend and baseman Josh Fairman graduated from DU in 2006. Drummer Jack Gargan and keyboardist Eric Blumenfeld earned their degrees in 2007. The fifth member, guitarist Adam Lufkin, studied at Lamont and still has a year to go, but school has taken a backseat to touring for now.
From their first gig — a DU party called the Mustache Bash in 2005 — to their 2007 nationwide tour, band members say they’ve always felt they belonged together. The pieces just fit.
Like many musicians growing up in the era of electronic music delivery and file transfers, members of the Kinetix aren’t counting on album sales and the backing of a wealthy studio to propel them. In the new age, they expect their music to be copied and swapped among fans. The band recently opted to give away their newest CD, Talking to Faces, to hundreds of fans who attended a show. The recordings, they say, are a way to build fans, who will buy tickets and T-shirts.
That model may build a fan base, but it also means nonstop touring. It’s not easy, but the band says it’s what they’ve signed up for. Only Fairman has a permanent place of his own, a single room in a house packed with recording equipment. The others live in the tour bus a friend overhauled for them or crash with friends and even sometimes DU alumni who offer them a place to stay on the road.
“For me, this is my way to see the world,” Lufkin says. “If that’s all I get out of this, if it just lets me get out there and see everything I can see, that would be fine.”