August 14-20, 2003

music

Three to Get Ready

DEL AWARE: "We're involved in political things but I don't feel like all of a sudden I should write political lyrics," says Andrea Lisi (left). "I write cheesy love songs, I read bad romantic novels."

D.C.’s up-and-comers, Del Cielo, play pop for the punk kids.

by John Vettese

Del Cielo is a long way from home.

The D.C. rock trio has heretofore been accustomed to two-week East Coast jaunts with only CD-R demos or 7-inch singles in tow. Now, with a relatively new full-length debut -- Wish and Wait, released on Eyeball Records in April -- they’re in the midst of a seven-week/45-stop journey, their most extensive to date.

"You get to the point on a full U.S. tour," observes bassist Basla Andolsun, "where you can't just turn around and go home."

That point, for the purposes of our discussion, is an Amoco gas station off of I-35 in between Des Moines and Minneapolis, where they park the van and plug the cell-phone charger into an outlet in the station wall.

It's day 32. Andolsun, drummer Katy Otto and singer/guitarist Andrea Lisi sound drained, but no less spirited for the wear as they pass the phone around and ruminate on how they got to where they are (besides Iowa).

As Otto describes it, the trio's story begins in 2001 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. A Washingtonian, she was constantly going to VCU to visit "some busted dude" she was dating and in the process befriended Lisi and Andolsun. The guitarist and bassist had just begun playing songs together, and were looking for a drummer. So they enlisted Otto, who was a free agent, since her previous band, Bald Rapunzel, had recently split. Del Cielo was born. "It was kind of dumb, in retrospect, since I was two hours away in D.C.," says Otto.

During the first year of long commutes, the trio's demo begat two split 7-inches -- one with D.C.'s Sin Desires Marie and one with Philly's Kill the Man Who Questions, both now defunct. By late 2002, Lisi and Andolsun moved to the Beltway area and work on Wish and Wait commenced.

With production by buddy Chad Clark -- Andolsun's bandmate in another project, Dischord Records' oddball quintet, Beauty Pill -- the album's instrumental tones are soft and light when they need to be (the opening minor-chord, clean-tone jangling of "Full-On Confessional"), but are raucous just as often. "Five Dollars Wasted," the first song the band ever played together, is a rambunctious blast while "April Fools," another demo retake, is carried by vocal cooing over muted verse chords, allowing tension to build into the chorus. Only "Tell Me a Lie" falls short, sounding blatantly derivative of Olympia girl-rock; everything else has its own personality.

Lisi's lyrics are overwhelmingly lovelorn, pining throughout the album over lost relationships and friendships with quips like, "My mind is tracing your body in the light from my bed at night/ Your face still seems to haunt me in my dreams."

Super emo stuff, and a bit of a contrast to the band's political secret side. After all, it's not uncommon to see Del Cielo playing at benefit shows, from Ladyfest Philly to the Aug. 17 fundraiser for D.C.'s Rape Crisis Center, which ends the band's cross-country jaunt. They appeared on two compilations released on Exotic Fever Records (the label Otto runs with roadie Sara Klemm) where proceeds went to D.C.'s Books to Prisoners project and the Vietnam Veterans of America project. Lisi also released a solo 7-inch to benefit the Empower Project, a nonprofit gender violence prevention program where Otto works full-time when she's not on the road.

"It's nice to feel that different aspects of your life are converging," she says. "The people at work are very supportive, they all know everyone in the band."

Still, the band likes the duality they've got going on between their songs and their activism. "We're involved in political things but I don't feel like all of a sudden I should write political lyrics," says Lisi. "I write cheesy love songs, I read bad romantic novels. It's a sick obsession of mine."

Dichotomy is something Del Cielo has grown used to, though. On the road, and on this tour especially, they often find themselves the only melodic, women-fronted band on the bill with a bunch of yelling hardcore boys. They're often able to pull the mix off, though, and Andolsun says its simply because it's the music they grew up on and the musicians they know well.

"I'd rather play with screamy bands that we're friends with than bands who we maybe sound more like but don't necessarily have a kinship with," she says. "Though it is nice when we get to do both."

Del Cielo plays Fri., Aug. 15, 6 p.m., $10, all ages, with Totalitar, From Ashes Rise, World Inferno Friendship Society, 1905, Behind Enemy Lines and The Scarlet Letter, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts., 800-594-TIXX.

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