A Newtown Band Sweetens The Deal With A Female Lead Singer

By Shannon Hicks

Playback, the Newtown-based rock band with two albums released, has undergone a metamorphosis. The group — songwriter and guitarist Joshua Swetts, bassist David Goodwick and percussionist Jason Hirou — has added 23-year old singer-songwriter Shannon Dooley and changed its name to SugarR™. The reinvented band will make its debut on April 21 at Hot Shots II in Newtown.

The band’s original music is best described as what listeners can hear these days on radio station WMRQ/radio 104 (Hartford, 104.1 FM). It’s a mix of modern rock, late 80s/early 90s stuff, with techno, ska punk and jazz all thrown into the stew. Playback debuted as a classic rock band (think i-95/95.1 FM), progressed into a more modern and classic rock mix (think WPLR 99.1 FM), and has evolved into what will be heard Saturday night in Newtown’s newest eatery featuring live music.

The first change out of Playback mode into the current concoction of SugarR™ occurred on the heels of the release of Playback’s fall 2000 CD, Urban Lullaby. That was when former frontman Rich Donnelly resigned.

“The music was great, but it boiled down to our vocalist sounded outdated,” Mr Swetts said recently. “We were getting good feedback for the music, but people were telling us the vocals weren’t working.” While Mr Swetts said Mr Donnelly ended up leaving on his own accord, he also admitted, “It wasn’t a great scene and he wasn’t happy. And I don’t blame him.”

Once Mr Donnelly left in October, the band pretty much went dormant for the remainder of the year. Mr Swetts and Mr Goodwick began writing again at the beginning of this year, and also started talking about resurrecting the ongoing music project they had been working on since 1996. The two core members of Playback also decided it was time to try a female vocalist.

“One of my previous projects at Berklee had been with a female singer,” said Mr Swetts, who attended the Boston-based college of music. “That’s what I was used to, and with the music I write the vocals sound better than with a male.”

Enter Shannon Dooley, a singer-songwriter out of New Haven. Joshua met Shannon through his sister Caitlin two months ago. Caitlin had mentioned to her hairdresser during an appointment one day that her brother’s band needed a new lead singer. The hairdresser was Miss Dooley, and the addition to the group resulted in instant sparks between all four members.

Just before joining SugarR™, Miss Dooley had finished a project in which she released a multi-song disc of her own music. She had also been in a band for 2½ years that played regularly in New Haven and New York City.

“She’s a great songwriter, for one thing,” Mr Swetts said. “The collaboration is perfect between me and her, and even the band as a whole. We’re all writing together, working more as a team than before. Ever since she started, the chemistry has been phenomenal.

The band’s new lead singer and its guitarist are handling the majority of the songwriting, but it’s also a collaborative effort with the drummer and bass player.

“[Shannon and I] do most of the songwriting, though lately it’s been all of us in the room,” Mr Swetts said. “If it comes down to copyright issues, it’s simply a team effort.”

In addition to the new member and energy, the band has undergone a shift in that each of the three male members of SugarR™ now handles a specific role outside of the music. Jason Hirou, for instance, is handling much of the booking for the band; he and Mr Swetts have a trip into New York City this week specifically to meet with club managers. “Our plan is to play these local gigs and then go larger,” Mr Swetts admitted.

David Goodwick is in charge of creating the band’s infrastructure. He handles the band’s Web page (www.playback-music.com) and continues to create and maintain the band’s contacts. Joshua Swetts is the band’s producer, which is going to come to the forefront in June when SugarR™ begins working on its new CD.

“Dave, myself and Jason are the professionals right now,” Mr Swetts continued. “Shannon isn’t a professional, yet, but that’s good because she thinks of things differently. She’ll think of things we don’t, things we might overlook from the business sense because she’s still thinking from the audience’s point of view.”

“The Playback project has evolved so far from where we started that no longer does the Playback past represent SugarR™’s future,” David Goodwick said in explaining the band’s name change.

“SugarR™ is the result of the evolution of our band, the synergy of our members and continuous improvement of our music,” added Jason Hirou.

The upcoming shows — April 21 and 28 and May 5 and 19 at Hot Shots II in Newtown, and May 26 at Players (formerly Our Place Café) in Danbury — will showcase brand-new songs, “SugarR™-ized adaptations” of Playback originals and covers of some popular and lesser-known songs.