Have Band, Will Travel: On the Road, Jonas Sees In Color

By Drew Kennedy

Nov 17 2009

In an era where those in search of new music can quench their insatiable appetites with a few clicks of a mouse, the online revolution has provided an engine to which thousands of bands have hitched their wagons. The ease of this route, however, has left many of the wheels on those wagons largely unweathered by the grooves of the road. This is not the case for the Greensboro, North Carolina-based sextet Jonas Sees In Color, who have spent the past two-plus years traversing the crisscrossed arteries of the country, building their fan base the old fashioned way—one show at a time.

For the group of band mates and roommates (consisting of Ryan Downing on vocals, Jonathan Owens on guitar/vocals, Jonathan Albright on guitar, Meagan Beth Plummer on Keyboard, Michael Deming on bass, and John Chester on drums), their goal was simple: to play anywhere they could find a gig.

“We scoured the Internet for anywhere that would let us play,” Downing says. “We’ve been to all the cities… but we’ve also played in the middle of nowhere Mississippi on a slab of concrete in a field. Our attitude is that we’ll play anywhere and any time. So something we’ve done by accident is that we booked all these small towns and became the first real band a lot of the kids in those towns had ever seen. They’ve turned into our most loyal and devoted fans because we took the time to go where nobody else would go.”

An indie rock band in the truest sense of the word, Jonas Sees in Color has logged miles between the cities and towns of the American Southeast that are embedded in their jaunty, toe-tapping songs—as road-tested as a band van. Their eponymous debut (recorded in the Denver studio owned by chart-topping band The Fray) ranges from the power-punk infused “For the Fences” to the thoughtful and tender “Avalanche,” showcasing a versatile and delicious knack for infectious melodies and poignant lyricism.

With its steady touring, Jonas Sees in Color has already begun to win over the hearts of music lovers throughout the country, and while their core fan base has been seeing the band’s colors for quite some time, it surely won’t be long before they see stars as well.