About ALRIGHT ALRIGHT

Weaving fantastic tales of time traveling apparitions, teenage monsters in love and the zombie apocalypse, Alright Alright's cunning take on classic rock music is as memorable as it is infectious. After several line-up changes, front-man and songwriter Michael Sweeney (formerly of The Hoorays) cemented the sextet together in 2008. He enlisted Jeff Springer on lead guitar, Brent Wroten (also of Tiki Monsters & Jettson) on drums, Cleo German on bass, Ryan Seaton on vocals and Dayna Richards (also of Salt Petal & Go West Young Man) on keys and trumpet. Together they craft clever three-minute gems with power, precision and panache.

In between gigging Southern California and mini-tours with the southland's Gods of Macho, the band released a YouTube video series (Live From Eargasm) and a four song self-titled EP, the latter of which saw the single 'Jenny Of The F.B.I.' spun on Troy's Room with Troy Spiropoulos' 'Best of 2009' broadcast on LATalkRadio.com. Their first full-length album You Are One Of Us Now was released on Hive-Mind Records in April and features music that will appear in the upcoming documentary film Robert Williams: Mr. Bitchin.

Their instantly classic riffs, bitchin' beats and catchy-as-hell lyrics make Alright Alright a band to listen to, but their supreme musicality, indefatigable energy and killer charisma make them a band to love.

Michael Sweeney. Lead Vocals. Guitar.
Alright Alright capo and frontman, Sweeney also spends time as an actor, an improv artist, starring in vitamin commercials and fostering a medium sized menagerie. The rest of the time he spends spawning two-and-a-half-minute indie-rock-pop gems with catchy hooks and lyrics that do that thing to you like in the movies where you think that the bad guy is still alive after a final exchange of blows with the protagonist, but then you realize that in fact said bad guy's head has been severed from his body as you see his soul begin to leak from the empty shell of a corpse as it collapses to the ground. I think they did it in Highlander ... and a bunch of other movies too. In this scenario, of course, you the audience are the bad guy, and Sweeney is the protagonist. It's only an analogy right? We actually love all our fans. But that won't stop Sweeney's lyrics from sticking it in reverse and backing up over your cold dead bodies to make sure. We know you understand. Also, he was in a play.


Brent Wroten. Drums.
Brent Wroten was blocked from a career in major league baseball because he played the same position as Mark McGwire at USC. Instead of crying about it, he learned the skins. He doesn't say much. There is little need since it is all communicated so effectively by his tight, solid drumming. He is the spine of Alright Alright. Without him we'd be kind of like that mushy, sticky, gel-like substance that sometimes gets on your shoes at Spaceland when they've booked a death metal band. He has the ability to get much needed sleep anyplace, anywhere, anytime, for even just minutes or seconds at a time, an ability that really comes into its own when he rides shotgun in the tour van. Scientists have even speculated that his relentless energy on the skins is fueled by nanosecond long micronaps between snare hits. This theory is obviously false, because everyone knows you can't fit a micronap in a nanosecond. Stupid scientists, next they'll be telling us that Pluto isn't a planet.


Ryan Seaton. Lead Vocals. Accordian. Ambient Sounds.
Classically trained in both opera and strange sounds, she deploys both skills to great effect in her work for Alright Alright. Two things that you would never predict about Ryan based only on seeing her pink beehive wig are i) that she had never been in a rock band before and ii) that she grew up in Wyoming, which I'm told is just to the left of East Dakota (though I'm no expert on the geography of Canada). Words literally cannot describe what Ryan brings to the band. Wait, I need to write more? WTF? OK, she's our fucking secret weapon, alright? She sings the stuff that you thought couldn't (or wouldn't) ever be sung, and then, when the song ends, and just when you think it's safe to exhale and begin to revel in its perfect storm of rock sexiness-POW!!! Wait, what's this? Has some strange sci-fi ambient keyboard beat twisted itself into your most private neuron and wrapped itself around the sweet spot of your inner ear? You bet your life it has. Holy gubbins, but if this goes on then the next song will actually kill you when it starts, right? Right. Did I say sweet spot? I think we both know I meant sticky patch.


Jeff Springer. Lead Guitar.
If Wroten is the spine of Alright Alright, then Springer is surely that little piece of stringy tendon that joins your elbow to his spleen. Behind the shredding riffs and jangly goodness of his disciplined but edgy stagecraft, Jeff's hidden talent is actually the tuning of guitars. There is not a six nor twelve string beast in all of Silverlake that cannot be tamed, eventually, by his methodical, and let's admit it, patient and painstaking method. Let's not forget also that "The Springer Technique" (patent pending) was invented entirely without the benefit of formal singing lessons, or a degree in advanced Astrology. It relies only on a small electronic box (manufactured by Boss) and some cord-like devices that go way beyond the understanding of at least this writer. The key is that the whole process actually takes *less* time, for each guitar than it does to mature a good single-malt scotch. You can bet your third nipple that once Jeff finishes law school and knows how to patent this baby, the world of professional music will never be the same again.


Dayna Richards. Trumpet. Keyboards. Vocals.
Much loved by her mother, Dayna Richards is, sadly, despised by Sweeney, and it is a miracle that either of them survived the four day tour to Salt Lake City last year. In the end, the only thing that saved the entire trip from a blood spattered disaster of epic proportions was that through the wizardry of modern special effects, the original Dayna actually was replaced by a perfect duplicate; a robot so sinister and life-like that even the professionally made musician's earplugs cast from Australian mud by Dayna's aforementioned mother fit so well that only one piece of tape (per ear) was required to keep them in. What does she do for the band, you ask? It's hard to know for sure, but most of the time she just spits into a metal tube, so far as I can tell. Doesn't look too hard to do, but holy crap does that spit sound good when it comes out the other end. I wouldn't recommend tasting it though.


CLeo Marie German. Bass Guitar.
Last, and very much least, we come to Cleo Marie German, who has more names than there are endings to The Return of The King. All of them are stupid. Legally recognized as an alien by the United States Government, and frequently mistaken for one by everyone else, she hacks away on her bass guitar like some deranged fool and basically just hopes that once in a while some of the notes will fit with what everyone else is playing and that the rest of the band won't notice that her left arm does not quite reach her shoulder. Honestly, I don't know why she doesn't just quit and make way for a real musician. She's sort of like that guest you had to invite to the party because she's a friend of a friend but you really hoped she wouldn't come, but then she fucking shows up, even when you told her the wrong address, and then she won't leave, even when the remaining party goers simultaneously fake death. Hate her.