Getting By With A Little Help From Your Friends

There's something to be said for marketability. Granted, talent and good timing are the true tests for longevity in the music world, but there are thousands upon thousands of talented bands out there that you've never heard of because they couldn't get their foot wedged in the door. Some bands have the luck of being in the right place at the right time, able to ride the wave of popularity with a combination of a well-polished hit songs and the right look. However, many of these groups get sucked into that unforgiving undercurrent of a sophomore slump, falling back down the ladder that took them so little time to climb.
In the last year and a half, Bakersfield's Adema have received unprecedented good fortune. Emerging from a major label bidding war with a plush Arista Records contract, embarking on several high-profile tours, having their music featured on The Real World, then the Tonight Show, Carson Daley and the Late Late Show and finally on national radio and their video on MTV; they've encountered a whirlwind of success. Not bad for a So Cal band that first got together two years ago. Wait…they first got together two years ago, received a record contract seven months later, then their first gig a half-year later? What is it that could be accountable for this?
Talent? Yes. Timing? Yes. Familial ties with nü-metal super gods Korn? Well…that may have had something to do with it.
"There might have been a buzz," admits Adema's bassist Dave DeRoo as we discuss the relationship between the two Bakersfield nü-metal titans. As it turns out, each band member has about one degree of separation from Korn, the most blatant being that Adema vocalist Mark "Marky" Chavez is Jonathan Davis' half-brother. However, Dave DeRoo is adamant that they earned their success with the right combination of personalities, heartfelt and excellent songwriting, and the drive to make it all happen.
"Those guys have had nothing to do with this (Adema's record contract)," says DeRoo about Korn. "I think we all have ties with Jonathan and Korn to different degrees; I used to play in a band with him ten years ago, which is how I knew Marky. Kris' (Kohl, Adema's drum player) old band was signed to their label. Marky's obviously related to him."
"Jon had nothing to do with this," continues the steadfast bassist. "He gave Marky some good advice, but he hasn't shopped the demo to anybody - we have a different label, we have different management. It arguably would have been an easier road for us if we had some help from their camp, but it's just not the way we chose to do it."
According to DeRoo, Korn opened the floodgates for Adema's style of music to flood the mainstream, and that's as much help as they received from the band.
"They influenced rock in general and this whole nü-metal thing wouldn't exist without Korn and Rage Against The Machine and that stuff," informs Dave, but affirms that "they've got their careers and we have ours."
Regardless of the events that led to the signing, recording, then gigging of Adema, their music speaks for itself. The cries of nepotism on behalf of America's jaded press have been drowned out by Marky Chavez' strong yet melodic voice, Kris Kohl's heavy hitting percussive force, the thick drone of DeRoo's bass and the mesh of Tim Fluckley and Mike Ransom's big distorted guitars, all topped off with electronic undertones and the hum of the mainstream corporate music machine. This is all bonded together through Adema's unabashed camaraderie.
"Before we signed the deal, we all got Adema tattooed on our wrists," recalls Dave. "It was kinda done half in jest, it was kinda a joke. It was weird, we just went and did it. I wouldn't have done that with any other band I was in, it was just a testament to how confident we were when we started playing together."
Through our conversation, the topic continually turns back to the relationship within the band. Their democratic nature is necessary for their long-term survival says DeRoo. "We're very much a band. We write everything together, we split everything evenly. The song doesn't have the Adema stamp on it until everybody throws in their two cents."
Growing up in Bakersfield placed many cultural restrictions on the group. In their youth, the members' only salvation was the music that they were exposed to. Luckily, Dave's father was a disc jockey at a local radio station, and many of his early memories incorporate the smell of vinyl.
"We grew up in Bakersfield, California and there's not a whole lot…music's the only thing we had unless you wanted to go…Anybody that's worth a shit gets out of town, goes up north, goes to school, go down south. It's kinda a place where you have to dream, and music's my dream."
This no doubt led to the band's enthusiasm for gathering in their bus and hitting the road. "We started touring about four months before the album came out," remembers DeRoo. "There wasn't any pressure from the label to get on the road immediately, but we didn't want to sit around at home. We were like, 'Let's go out and road test these songs.'"
With bottles of Jägermeister in the tour bus fridge, along with as much beer as they could acquire, the band joined, in March, the last leg of the infamous Sno Core nü-metal music tour.
"I think we're kinda bringing a cool element to (Sno Core)," happily relates the bass player. "The other bands said that when we got on, they were happy to have another band that was more rocking on the bill. It's a pretty varied bill actually, there's something for everybody." …that is, if everybody likes hardcore and nü-metal.
"Who wants to pay 20 bucks to watch the same band five times in a row?" continues DeRoo. Good question. The answer is all too many.
When the next Nirvana comes and knocks nü-metal from its throne, will Adema stand a fair chance at surviving the change with their melody conscious heavy music? Only time will tell if Bakersfield's Adema will be noted as turn of the century titans.

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