Indie rock saturated the small downtown State College venue SoZo, 256 E. Beaver Ave., Friday night when Nashville-based band Paper Rival took the stage.
Lead singer Jacob Rolleston's energy was palpable as he frenziedly belted the lyrics to refrains for songs like "You're Right" and "Home is Right Out Your Window."
"We feel that our live performances are a lot stronger than our records," said Brent Coleman, a guitarist for the band. "What you're hearing on the record is what you're going to hear live except with a lot more energy."
The band, formerly known as Keating, played a set of seven songs ranging from the droning laments of "Alabama" to emotionally driven powerhouses like "Bluebird." Although its full-length album is about "98 percent" done, the band is promoting its EP under its new name in order to re-establish its fan-base.
"We just released that EP when we learned we had to change our name, just so we didn't drop a full length and no one knew who we were," said Patrick Damphier, another of the band's guitarists. "As soon as we signed our record deal, the label tried to trademark our name, and they ran into a problem in Canada because a band had the name [Keating] already."
Rolleston and Damphier both had different ideas for new band names: Modern Rival and Paper Tiger, respectively. They compromised for the Paper Rival name because of its originality.
"The Internet is important for a band like us, so it's really important that we could be paperrival.com or myspace.com/paperrival and not have to tack music or band onto the end of the URL," Damphier said.
Though the band hasn't found a stable drummer yet, Rolleston (vocals and guitar), Coleman (guitar), Damphier (guitar) and Cody McCall (bass guitar) have been playing together for a little more than two years. Dillon Napier is temporarily signed on to play the drums for the tour.
The band cites several influences, from Bob Dylan to Broken Social Scene to Nirvana. The range is diverse, but subtle traces are apparent in the band's music.
The band's sound is melodic and clean, and Rolleston's vocals are similar to those of Incubus' Brandon Boyd. The songs rotate from energy-driven anthems to lethargic ballads like "Alabama."
The lyrics for "Alabama" are caustic, with a refrain that exclaims, "prison cell, part of hell freeway/state where fast is always slow/so the wind can't ever blow/hopelessly yours Alabama."
Rolleston wrote the song when he was in the backseat of a car, driving with an ex-girlfriend to a cheerleading competition from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Alabama.
"He didn't really have a bad experience with Alabama," Damphier said. "It just sort of made him realize when he was in that car how much he didn't want to be there."
Many of the other songs' lyrics stem from the band's experiences with the south and racism, most readily apparent in the song "Home is Right Out Your Window." As for their hometown, Nashville, the band has a love-hate relationship with the city.
"There's a huge 18-and-over indie scene in Nashville, and it's really tough to get accepted into it," Damphier said. "It's awesome to live there and record and network with other musicians, but it's a terrible place to try to perform."
The band has been touring with Ace Enders and is due to put the finishing touches on its full-length album, One Not One, in September. The band plans to release the album in February 2008.
"We enjoy touring and sure, it's hard at times -- you get claustrophobic and this and that," Coleman said. "But ultimately, for a band like us, that's what it's all about ... being out there."
