Pine and Battery

Pine: to yearn intensely and persistently. Bat·tery: a group of two or more cells connected together to furnish electric current.

San Francisco is a hotbed for live music these days. For the first time since the 60s, musicians are coming together to form bands that revolutionize sounds that have San Francisco citizens coming out in droves to hear live music once again. Certainly no scene is stronger than the Rock n’ Roll scene, and the new band on the block creating quite a buzz is Pine and Battery. Consisting of Rick Munoz (drums), AJ Leighton (bass), Andy Weller (guitar) and Jeff Campbell ( lead vocals and guitar), Pine and Battery combines years of experience with stellar talent to give Rock n’ Roll the fresh makeover it’s been needing. The four members come from a wide variety of musical backgrounds but share the common roots of rock and draw from their past band experiences to collaborate in a way that San Francisco hasn’t seen since it’s heyday. Jeff Campbell, the front man for the band, penned the bands first single “Southern” – currently on heavy rotation in the Bay Area - is a song about getting ahead and not letting your fears hold you back from what you want. The song combines an acoustic ballad with a rock hard edge that is demonstrative of the band’s smooth yet vibrant and solid sound. A Philadelphia native, Campbell moved to San Francisco specifically for the Rock scene he had heard was developing: "This town is full of so much culture and rock n' roll is the center of it." Campbell does a good deal of the band’s songwriting but asserts that when they come together in the studio or for rehearsals, it is always a collaborative effort with all four contributing equally. The band formed in 2005 when Campbell and Weller met at a gig in San Francisco one night. Shortly after they started collaborating on some of the music that Campbell had been writing; low and behold it was a solid match. Later added to the mix were Munoz and Leighton making up the rhythm section, bringing their current project into full fruition in late 2006. When asked who they sound most like, the answers vary from Jeff Buckley to U2 to Foo Fighters. The common thread amongst the four members though is their strong allegiance to the classic rock of the 70s and then it’s resurgence again in the 90s. Currently, Pine and Battery is the artist of the month on KFOG, garnering huge hits on their myspace page where you can hear new live tracks soon to come out on their forthcoming EPK. And what can listeners expect from their next album due out in ’09? Campbell promises it to be “more raw and a bit more edgy”, with the same electrical current and persistence to make great music that originally drew the four members together to form: Pine and Battery.