“You’re not allowed to break up. Ever,” says Tom Murphy drummer for Philadelphia/New York band, Penrose.
The three Murphy brothers make up Penrose. Tom on drums, Pat on bass, and Dan on guitar/vocals/keyboard. And, Tom has a point, unlike the current crop of husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend duos, the three brothers are kind of stuck with each other – but they like it that way.
“The idea seems to be, no matter what, we’re going to keep going,” says Tom. “So [my brothers] can say what they are going to say, and yell what [they’re] going to yell, and be as right or as wrong as [they’re] going to be, but we’re going to keep going.”
The idea of progression has been a good one for Penrose. Starting out at a warehouse in North Philadelphia, the brothers in Penrose made some good strides in the last year and a half. Beginning as a space-rock/post-rock band, Penrose have begun to hone in on a whiskey-soaked hard rocking sound – something loud enough and energetic enough to really capture the energy the band brings to a live show.
“While we were spacey a little bit before, I think we probably made a conscious effort to differentiate ourselves from that,” says Pat, “[we wanted to say], look here’s our guitar, and it’s loud, and it’s going to kick your teeth down your throat.”
Not only honing their music, Penrose works hard on playing shows and getting their name out. “It took about a year and a half to go from consistently playing to nobody, to having guys who we never met before singing our songs with us in the front row, and that’s really exciting,” says Tom.
“We realized to [get our name out there] that it was going to mean a lot of time spent on the Jersey Turnpike,” says Tom. “And we spent a lot of time on the Jersey Turnpike. And we still spend a lot of fucking time on the Jersey Turnpike.”
“It’s not so bad,” says Dan with a laugh. “Now instead of focusing on the sewage, power lines and smokestacks, the turnpike reminds us of shows, music, and whiskey!”
Speaking of whiskey, the band’s raw sound could best be described as whiskey drenched, down-home dirty rock and roll. Songs like ‘Devil’s Grip’ and ‘Crooked Teeth’ roar out of the gate with blazing guitars from Dan and aggressive rhythms from Pat and Tom.
But, that’s not all they do. ‘Suite for Stack’ is a ten-minute epic of massive scale, a song that incorporates chameleon like changes in structure and refined movements, perhaps a nod back to their older space-rock days.
A band of brothers, Penrose has no plans of slowing down. In fact, they will be on tour throughout most of the summer, supporting their latest record, Devil’s Grip. Along with all their touring, Penrose plans to curate and headline Caravan Festival in Maine this summer. Finally, the Murphy’s are already at work on their next record, something they hope to complete by the end of the summer.
All of this means that people should expect to hear much more from Penrose – they show no signs of letting up. And besides, they can’t break up.
Check out Penrose here, here, and here. You can see Penrose this Thursday at Cameo Gallery, the band performs at 8pm sharp.
