The Hairbrain Scheme

Members: Grant Parsons (vocals), Chris Nava
(keyboards), Nate Harris (bass), and Bobby Halvorson (drums).
Albums: Their debut album, You’re a Nation, is
being released on the band’s own indie label Fank You Records.
Prior Gigs: UCSB’s Extravaganza 2005 and the Hub,
Menehune’s, Hard to Find Showspace, and SOhO.
Influences: Queen, Frank Zappa, Devo, Mr. Bungle,
Daft Punk, Sam Cooke, Peter Gabriel, The Unicorns, Bane, and
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Style: Self-described
“spastic-dance-floor-with-carnival-noise rock.” The
Skinny: Begun as something reminiscent of a bad Isla Vista
joke, HS is fast-emerging as a creatively crazy, costume-wearing,
genre-dissolving antidote to typical radio rock. Their six-song
debut album ranges from heavy, guitar-thrusting fast jams and
humorous, melodically key-laden, scream-enhanced odes, to uppity
soon-to-be-pop hits and near-ballads. Is it time to start taking
them seriously? “Definitely,” said Parsons, who works the graveyard
shift at Devereux. “It started out as a conceptual thing, but then
we kind of lost the concept and started focusing on writing the
music.” One member even dropped out of college to pursue this
scheme, so hopefully for him — and for the other three, two of whom
are UCSB music majors — this isn’t so hairbrained after all.
Next Gig: The CD release party is Friday, February
24, 8:30 p.m. at Zelo’s on State St. Opening will be Springtime Is
Wartime and The Giant Squid Show.