Not Just “Another Band”

At first the building appears to be just another back-alley

garage belonging to the house it sits behind. The roof supports the

sagging branches of a nearby tree and layers of dust have tinted

the siding brown.

From the outside the small structure looks like the kind of

place where a high school band would find refuge when they get too

loud to play in the living room, but it’s not.

It’s a recording studio and home to Another Band.

Another Band is composed of three guitar players, Justyn

Hamilton, Dustin Prinz, Dave McNew, a bass player, Kyle McKinney

and a dog, Buddy-Fat-Stynky.

Before Fort Collins, before the recording studio they live in

with no plumbing, before they had to use a nearby gas station

bathroom as their own, before baths in the Poudre River and before

Buddy, Another Band was just three friends trying to be stars of

tomorrow.

The Carey Junior High Stars of Tomorrow talent contest in

Cheyenne, Wyo., was the scene of the band’s first public

performance. During tryouts a teacher asked for the band’s name.

Expecting to announce themselves when they took the stage, McNew

said he replied to the question with, “I don’t know, we’re just

another band.”

The teacher looked at the young McNew for a second, made a note

and said, “That’s clever.”

Their turn came. They were announced as Another Band and the

name stuck.

They didn’t make the cut as one of the stars of tomorrow, but

when Central High in Cheyenne held a school-wide talent show their

senior year, the outcome was different.

They took the stage, accompanied by a bass, cello and violin

player and played a song McNew wrote about a girl, called “So

Fitting are You.”

“When we all hit that last chord (the crowd) was all quiet and

then they went insane,” McNew said. “That’s when I knew what I

wanted to do.”

After high school, McKinney and Hamilton went to University of

Wyoming while McNew traveled to recording school at Northeast

Community College in Norfolk, Neb.

It was there that McNew met Prinz, and a new chapter in the

band’s history began. In Prinz, McNew found the band’s missing link

and the new foursome began playing together and soon relocated.

In August 2003, Hamilton, McNew and Prinz moved into the

25-by-14 recording studio and earnestly began to build a career in

music.

“You have to be willing to live like sh*t,” Hamilton said.

“We’re dedicated to what we do.”

That dedication keeps the foursome together, despite the fact

that McKinney lives in Cheyenne with his fianc� and his

16-month-old daughter Autumn.

“They’ve taken a lot of time to make sure that what they have is

solid,” said Tim Hunt, a local musician and concert promoter.

Hunt booked Another Band’s first Fort Collins performance as a

Diamond’s featured artist nearly a year ago and since then they

have played everywhere from the Soiled Dove in Denver to the square

in Old Town where fan Heather Ryan saw the band for the first

time.

“I was passing out flyers and they were playing in the square,”

said Ryan who has now made it her mission to spread the word about

Another Band. “Every time I go see them, I take new people with me

and every time they want to (see them) again. When I wake up I want

to play some Another Band. It puts me in a good mood.”

OutBox: Another Band will be playing at Diamond’s on Saturday

March 13 and can be seen there nearly every Wednesday.