by Tom Lounges

NAST DEVIN, a modern rock quartet who is virtually unknown outside of Porter County, Indiana is shaping up to be the “Rocky Balboa” of the Calumet Region.    

            Although the first incarnation of Nast Devin had been formed in 1998 by the brothers –– Nick and Jon Summers –– even as recent as one year ago, this foursome was pretty much regulated to “opening band” status. 

             And at that, they rarely stepped on stages outside of the Porter County area, where they frequently played double bills with the hard rock cover group, Trauma.  In fact, one of the “high water marks” of their “career” up until recently, was having been asked to play live atop a flatbed semi-trailer during Hobart, Indiana’s Fourth Of July parade.   

            Though always a rather likable bunch of guys, given their frequent member changes and the stream of tired Q101 covers they predictably pumped out each time they played out, Nast Devin sadly seemed destined to stay at that level.  

             “I had a epiphany while sitting on the beach drinking a beer last year,” revealed 24-year-old Nick Summers, a self-confessed “late musical bloomer” who picked up his instrument for the first time just after graduating high school.   “We had been out messing around for a couple of years and not getting anywhere really, so I decided I needed to get serious about the band and the music and see what might come of it.”

            The news that his brother was finally ready to get focused was happily received by younger sibling Jon, who has been singing in choirs since the fourth grade.  “When Nick suddenly got serious, it had a trickle down affect on the rest of the band,” said the 22-year-old frontman/vocalist.   “We started writing more and the live shows just got a lot better.”   

             As the band tightened up musically and the songwriting began in earnest, Jon likewise morphed from the guy who had once timidly hide behind the microphone stand, to the guy who now leaps from the stage and works the crowd with wild abandonment.  

              Guitarist Mike Krischano, a veteran of Chicago clubs, has been bending strings as Nast Devin’s guitarist for the last two years, and said their growth in the last year alone has been remarkable and satisfying.  

 All three of the others agree, that planting Merrillville drummer Chris Boillot on their drum throne was an important factor in solidifying the band.   “Musically we are all on the same page now,” said Krischano.

             “I joined the band right before Thanksgiving this past year and my first real gig with them was the Grand Finals of the battle of the bands held in December at Backdoor Lounge in Griffith.  Nothing like a little pressure to break in the new guy,” laughed Boillot, who formerly played in the local band Roscoe and is a union electrician by day.  

                  Though visibly nervous prior to taking the stage in that contest, Boillot drew from his 14 years experience behind the drum kit and slammed like a trouper, helping his new group take home the $1,000 cash prize that night.   “He’s damn lucky,” joked Nick. “If we had lost, it would have been his first and last gig.”

             The money they won that night was inconsequential to the band, who claim they actually entered into the battle to test their musical mettle against a wide array of other Chicagoland bands.  

            In fact, they only held on to their financial booty for as long as it took to thank the audience.   They walked off stage and immediately put half of their winnings into the hands of a local mother and father who have long support ed the band and whose 13-year-old girl who needs a liver transplant.    

              “They’re friends of ours and we just figured that Kevin and Missy could put the money to a lot  better use than we could,” said Nick, trying to down play their donation that night.   

            What thrills all four members of Nast Devin the most about winning that late December battle against 40 other area bands, was winning it on the strength of their own original songs.   

             The Nast Devin sound falls somewhere between Godsmack and Creed, with Nick’s funky-chunky bass lines giving a nod to the influence the  Red Hot Chili Peppers have had his playing style.   

           Many of Nast Devin’s original material can be heard on Take A Ride, a 9-song CD which was originally released as a budget-minded demo for their small core of fans in the summer of 2002.  Due to the powerful reaction the disc has gotten from fans, the press and indie label A&R folks, the CD is being remastered and re-released with full-blown graphics later this month.  The remaining half of their battle prize has helped to fund that upgrading.

             “We’ve had some radio stations [both college and commercial] tell us they like our songs a lot and would play them, but that the quality of the CD is not up to par and that we needed to get them remastered in order to get radio play,” explained Krischano.  “So that’s what we’re doing right now.   Hopefully, once the CDs come back in a few weeks, people will be hearing some of our songs on the radio.”   The CD has also been favorably written up in The Times  and the Gary Post-Tribune, the two daily newspapers of Northwest Indiana.

            “We sold over 600 CDs just at our gigs without even trying really,” said Jon, adding that they had not been gigging out all that often following the demo’s completion, due to the loss of their drummer and their lengthy search for a new one, which lead to Boillot's joining.  “I’m talking about copies actually ‘sold’ and not ones given away or used for promotion or whatever.”

             With the band’s rock ‘n’ roll engine now revving loudly like that of the classic Devin automobile they are name after, there is already talk at the table of them returning soon to the studio to begin recording a brand new album.  

               “The songs on ‘Take A Ride’ are older, some going back to about the time I joined the band two years ago,” said Krischano.  “We have been writing a lot of new stuff in the last couple of months that we all feel is much stronger.  The newer stuff is a little more complex and a little heavier I think.”

             Some indie labels have been sniffing around and Nast Devin and their newly acquired Chicago-based manager, Scott Iurillo, are happy to hear their pitch, but are admittedly being cautious of jumping on anything too fast.   While he refuses to give up any specific details for fear of jinxing the situation, Nick alludes to something that might be in the works between the band and a branch of the Disney organization.

               Because of the region in which they live and play, Nast Devin will continue to cover the hit songs by such bands as Seether, Nickelback, Tool, Linkin Park and others for the time being, but their original songs now dominate about a third of their live set list and the fans seem more prone to run to the bar or the bathroom during the cover songs than during the band’s own tunes.

    “That’s when you know you’re doing something right,” said Krischano.  “When people give your songs that kind of respect, it means the world to a band like us.   We love and appreciate the fans who have come on board with us and we are only going to keep pushing harder from here on in.”  Heads nod in agreement all around the table, with a robust – “Hell Yeah!” – blurting out from Jon.  

            “Getting a big color feature in Midwest BEAT is one of the goals we set for the band,” mused Nick.  “Now that we’ve got you here interviewing us, we can move on the to the next thing on the list!”   

                                                 Ummmm....has Rolling Stone called yet?

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