by Lisa Shore
As soon as the house lights go up the musicians — rock stars just five minutes prior — pack up and haul the drum kit offstage and unplug their electric guitars from the massive speakers. The saxophonist lingers as it takes a minute to disassemble his equipment. One by one, the musicians disappear off the stage and the teenage girls in spaghetti straps and fitted jeans who had once dotted the edge of the stage like icing around a birthday cake, turn into this crowd in a downtown Atlanta nightclub. The floors are concrete, and the drinks are over-priced and served in see-thru Solo cups. The vibe here is all teenage spirit. Until a roadie hops up onto the elevated stage to tune the guitars, set up the drum kit and test the sound against the front of house technician. Soon, the lights go down, and the spotlights turn up. The Twotakes, the Atlanta-based band led by vocalist and guitarist Gio Turra, explodes onto the stage. The band performs a song called “Simple.” The Brazilian-born front-man takes the room’s energy and dials it up from respectable to electric.
The unique sound of Turra’s voice, hovering in the alto-tenor realm and his magnetic presence on stage — I swear you can see the actual music moving through him — works like a sort of rock n’ roll gravity that immediately pulls the sea of swooning girls back to the stage’s edge. Soon a group of interloper guys are towed in, pumping their fists as they plug into the music.
Just who are The Twotakes and what are they about?
Influenced by The Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age and The Killers, The Twotakes is Turra’s band. Now a third-year branded entertainment student, Turra was in his first year when he was playing pool in the common area of Spring House and noticed a blonde kid tapping on the pool table. That kid was Josh Riccio, now a third-year animation student. Riccio turned out to be a jazz-trained percussionist and is now The Twotakes drummer. Turra recruited bass guitarist Chase Brown and lead guitarist Beau Anderson from their previous band, the hard rock Athens-based New Mantra.
Turra’s musicality comes from home. He took wooden spoons to upside down pots and pans when he was 4. When he turned 6, his mother, a musician and gospel singer, bought his first real set of skins. He also taught himself how to play the guitar at 14. He grew up listening to Brazilian legend Caetano Veloso, and the father of Bossa nova itself, João Gilberto and Banda do Mar. The Latin rhythm is indeed detectable in songs like “Undercover” and the opening track of their one hour and fifteen-minute set, “Simple.”
Now, to the more significant question: what are they all about? What’s going to take them from the dimly lit, sweaty Southern nightclub to the world? Well, does any artist know who they are when they’re just getting started? Do any of the great painters, writers, sculptors, animators or poets immediately understand what they need, to tell their story to the world? With one album out, “Submarine Races” and second set to release next month — a record that Turra expects to “have a personality that comes through.” The music pulls influences from the eighties but isn’t afraid to explore and push their heavy and dark side. “This is an album,” he said, “is where we continue our story.”
