Runaway Brides

IN BLOOM: "I do feel we're the closest thing to a Nirvana in this day and age," says Dimitri Coats of The Burning Brides (center).

Dimitri Coats enjoys success in stages.

by John Vettese

When we caught up with him last month, Dimitri Coats of The Burning Brides had no idea his band had landed a spot on this year's Y100 Feztival.

The lineup had been announced a week earlier, but the Brides were on the road playing big amphitheaters with arty metallers A Perfect Circle and thus out of the loop. In town for a day between gigs in Hershey and D.C., we found Coats at the corner of Fourth and Arch in jovial spirits, yet unaware of the plum spot the burgeoning Philly rock favorites had just landed.

"That's news to me," he chuckled. "I don't know. It's a wacky world, the world of touring in a rock band. I just kinda take it day by day."

We dutifully informed him the Brides made the main stage and that, while some of the lineup was sadly lukewarm (Hoobastank), the headliners were a fantastic one-two punch from New York City

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Coats said breathlessly. "You're telling me we're going to share the stage with The Strokes and The Beastie Boys?"

Well, yeah, pretty much.

"Ha-haaaaaaaaa!" he bellowed. "Ah, I've always wanted to play with The Strokes, this is going to be so much fun."

Coats says there's not a lot to believe in when it comes to top 40 music, so landing on a bill with two bands that can make him this sincerely excited is a big deal. The Brides have done the perfunctory opening-act thing for over a year now, taking to the road with the likes of Audioslave and Marilyn Manson — not really hip names to drop, but not bad company for a screamy local trio who once thought the best they would ever do is a contract with Matador and a tour of 500-capacity venues.

See, in 2002 the band got snatched up by V2 Records, which promptly reissued their debut, Fall Of The Plastic Empire. That gave the sludge-punk opus a longer shelf life than it experienced on formerly local label File 13 (they actually turned down an offer from Matador) and made an honest-to-God radio hit out of "Arctic Snow." Suddenly Coats and bassist Mel Campbell found themselves in a position to be a much bigger act than they ever envisioned.

"You make certain compromises," admits Coats. "You go on tour with bands that can put you in front of a lot of people but who you don't really care for. There's a point where we draw the line, but there are very few bigger rock bands out there right now that are any good."

Their goal, Coats says, is to become one of those good bands, and playing 300 shows in a year, like the Brides did in 2003, is a good step in that direction. The hot new Leave No Ashes is another.

Ashes rocks hard and, with glossy production and layered arrangements by keyboardist Roger Manning and producer George Drakoulias, is easily the best recorded document the band has released to date. Cuts like the biker-bar jam "Century Song" and the macabre blues "To Kill A Swan" are sure to become fan favorites.

At the same time, the record — like Plastic Empire before it — seems a tad overdone, not coming close to touching the band's bombastic onstage energy. It makes one ponder the precision of comments Coats made in the music press last year about the Brides' career path following that of Nirvana. You know: Longtime guitarist-bassist team goes through a handful of drummers before finding a solid one with punk lineage — Jason Kourkounis from The Delta 72 — in the process hopping from an indie to a major.

"I think I've also been quoted as saying this album is going to be our Nevermind," Coats laughs. "I do feel we're the closest thing to a Nirvana in this day and age. I'm certainly not trying to compare us to them, but I think we evoke a similar feeling that's pure and honest and refreshing."

The band has evolved into a tight unit; such are the perks of Coats and Campbell not only being guitarist-bassist but also boyfriend-girlfriend. "We don't really get too homesick the way other people on the road do, because we have each other," he says, his voice becoming notably more tender. "But then it's also tough — you fight a bit, people see you fighting and start thinking, "Oh God, that band's gonna break up for sure.'"

But they haven't broken up yet, and Coats says he and Campbell have been through so much together backstage and on the road that if there was a time they would have split, it is now long past.

"I think that's part of our sound, that love and that tension," he says. "I think we're in it for the long haul."

The Burning Brides play the Y100 Feztival with The Strokes, Beastie Boys, The Darkness, Cypress Hill, Hoobastank and New Found Glory, Fri., June 18, noon-11 p.m., $35.50-$45.50, Tweeter Center, Mickle Blvd. and Riverside Dr., Camden, N.J., 215-336-2000, www.y100.com.