Matt Arana - Guitar | Scott "Rock" Davis - Guitar | Rich Criebaum - Bass | Scott Gertkin - Vox | Brian Pearia - Drums
This isn’t your typical breaking band story…. Band gets local airplay; Band gets signed; band gets national airplay; band becomes rock stars… No, with Mesh StL, the story is a bit different. They decided to take a road less traveled. St. Louis, Missouri’s Mesh StL is a rockin’, edgy, dual-guitar attack that first gained national attention in 2001 from the radio support of their single, “Maybe Tomorrow” from the debut local album, Lowercase. A short time later the band singed an independent label deal and, with “independent-level” label support, went on to sell over 15,000 records nationwide behind this Top 20 single, a video on MTV2 and extensive touring with bands like Puddle of Mudd and Tantric. But that path can only take a band so far… Mesh StL has decided they are ready to take their destiny into their own hands….
Since walking away from their label deal and coming off the road in June of 2002, Mesh StL has spent the past 15 months in the studio coming up with twelve unbelievable new songs that continue the depth and commercial appeal that the Lowercase album began. The new album, Coming Up For Air, shows a whole new side to this group of musicians that is awing not only themselves, but a whole slew of industry professionals, as well.
“We almost gave up,” remembers vocalist Scott Gertken. “After being chewed up and spit out by the industry as a whole, the five of us hit a low point that I wasn’t sure if we’d ever recover from. But we held together as a band and were able to not only become better friends, but our songs have grown to a whole new level, too. That’s where the album title, Coming Up For Air, comes from… We were suffocating for a short period, but now we’re breathing again with a whole new outlook!”
And things continue to look promising for Mesh StL… Coming Up For Air will be released nationally in early 2004 on the band’s own label, Bullet 339 Records, through a new national distribution deal. One of the tracks from the album, “Down,” has just been released on EA Sports’ NHL 2004 and NASCAR Thunder 2004. Shows are also in the band’s future with a national tour in the works coinciding with the release of the album.
All in all, this band is in a pretty good place… The road is becoming clearer with every passing day. A road less traveled for sure, but one that Mesh StL wouldn’t exchange for anything.
