You can call the members of exit3 "musical swingers."
The five-member band has swung through various versions of itself over the past few years, with its current members hailing from all over the country — from New York to New Mexico, Massachusetts to Missouri.
Swingers come together to make love, but for the past six months, this most recent version of exit3 has come together to make music. And they love it.
The local band's Web site promises "clean guitars and unshaken, understandable vocals," and according to lead singer and acoustic guitarist Seth Gooby, that's what the band delivers.
"I feel like I'm a fan of our music and I want other people to feel the same way," Gooby says.
The current "swingers" in exit3's club are Gooby, Luis Tavares and Josh Kennedy on electric guitar, Pete Gonzales on bass and Jay Corkran on drums.
Even the band's list of influences swings. The Beatles, The Band, David Gilmore, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Suzanne Vega, Ben Harper, Hall & Oates, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and the Gin Blossoms all have their pickles on exit3's plate.
And Kennedy burns the candle at both ends. He's also the stage manager for the aforementioned Gin Blossoms. But the band won't swing with just anybody.
"The thing with Tempe is that there's a lot of hope and stuff in this town," Gooby says. "When I can go to a bar any night of the week and hear original music, that's cool, but I think there's also that clique and we do some rock 'n' roll rootsy stuff."
"Stuff that not a lot of people do," Kennedy finishes for Gooby. "There's a lot of Dave Matthews rip-off bands out there and that's not us."
Looking around Mayberry Studios in Tempe, the band's occasional rehearsal spot, Tavares says, "We have all the qualifications of a Tempe band."
Gooby agrees.
"Tempe has influenced us in a lot of ways," he says. "I never even heard country music before I moved out here. Now, some of the songs…we'd get kicked out of town for back home."
Back home for Gooby is Massachusetts, where he drafted the first version of exit3.
Gooby started the band there years ago as a student at Westfield State College. Westfield is the third exit off the Massachusetts turnpike, hence the band's name.
"I used to play as 'Seth Gooby and Friends,'" Gooby says. "We needed a name. It sounded like a show on the Disney Channel.
"Unfortunately, there's a lot of 'exit' bands out there."
But something makes this band different.
Exit3's members say their egos — and their music — aren't as heavy as those of other bands.
"There's no rock stars in this band," Tavares says. "We're all really down to earth and genuine. There seems to be a pervasive attitude that we have to record and we're going to make it.
"We're all damn good lookin' too," he adds with a smile.
The band performs weekly at Kona Jacks in Chandler, regularly at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in Scottsdale and Awhatukee and occasionally at Long Wong's in Tempe.
"Corporate breweries are our thing. We love it," Tavares acerbically declares.
Gonzales adds that he enjoys performing in Tempe.
"Long Wong's people just go to watch the music — not like some places where there's a party and a band playing in the background."
This ambience, then, might fit perfectly with what Tavares says is the band's goal: "To find as many people as possible that like our music."
"To just be able to play music," Kennedy adds.
This task has been difficult for the members of exit3, however, who all have full-time jobs, making rehearsal time hard to come by, Tavares says.
"We usually end up writing about 25 half-songs," he says.
But when they do come together, Gooby says each member contributes to the band's repertoire.
"Every time we play we usually write a different song," he says. "We go back to the roots of certain types of music. If we could just sit in our studio all day…we got a lot of brains together."
The band's first album, Turn on the Gravity, sold out its 1,000 copies in 1999, and local radio station KZON 101.5 plays the track "Idiot Savant" off the album now and again.
The band hopes to finish recording another album within the next few months, so more listeners can "swing" with them soon.
"It's nice to have something people can take home," Gooby says. "Besides us."
Reach the reporter at sara.thorson@asu.edu.