Looking to embed themselves in mainstream consciousness with their brand of thinking man’s rock, the L.A. natives of the Color Turning are out to prove that catchy doesn’t necessarily equate to cliché. And with intellectualism to match ambition, bassist Jason Abraham, guitarist and pianist David Del Fonzo, drummer Garet Powell, guitarist Sean Rodriguez and singer Steve Scavo have a blank canvas in front of them and whole lot of ideas about what to fill it with.

“We really don’t like to tell people what to feel about a song,” says Del Fonzo. “It’s one of the reasons you’ll rarely hear us mention what the songs are about on stage. We want people to experience it on their own terms without us telling them what to think of it or how to listen to it. I think if bands have to do that, then they’re not doing their job of writing a good song.”

Luckily, the band’s music has been warmly received by fans, though they’ve been met with varied reactions nonetheless. “Some people will tell us, ‘this really helped me through this time,’ and some people will tell us, ‘I can’t fall asleep unless I’ve got you guys on,’ which I think has a compliment in there somewhere,” Scavo jokes. And sometimes, it’s as simple of a response as “I like how open-ended your music is.”

“When I go to a good show, I walk away and I’m almost depressed,” Scavo adds of what he draws from for inspiration while performing. “It’s not like a depression, it just kicks you in the ass. That’s what I want people to walk away with. I want them to be moved and floored by it, even if they don’t really know what it is.” Expanding on this, Del Fonzo adds, “I’d really like our songs or our music or our live show to serve almost as a mirror, where people don’t experience us, but they walk away with a more intense feeling about themselves.”

While that may seem nice and vague and metaphysical and all, Del Fonzo is actually asking quite a bit of a potential listener, considering how much of themselves each of the band members put into their songs. “We’ve all been in other bands when we were younger, but this is the first band that I was in where I was thinking about our songs on a whole other level of the types of people you could reach with it,” says Del Fonzo. “I don’t think The Color Turning is a selfish thing, I don’t think this music is necessarily for us. It is in the sense that we experience it too, but we experience it in the way that we want everyone else to experience it.”

But of course, putting oneself out there, be it for band mates or a much larger audience, in order to make that connection possible leaves one open to criticism and their ideas open to editing, changing and oftentimes scrapping. Indeed, having five artistically-minded individuals can at times feel like too many of the proverbial chefs in the kitchen, but the members of The Color Turning pride themselves on their ability to work cohesively, at least as much as possible when doing something creative.

With many of them coming from musical backgrounds, each member has had early exposure, even if they didn’t quite realize what they were destined for in the years to come. With both Scavo picking up his father’s guitar and Del Fonzo picking up his brother’s at early ages, a love of all things six-stringed and rocking was quickly cultivated in each. Similarly, Powell also took to his instrument of choice by seeming genetic predisposition.

“I started playing drums because both of my older brothers had bands growing up and they would always practice in our garage, so the drums would always be there from their drummer,” he says of his eight-year-old introduction to the idea of being in a band. “I would always sneak and get kicked out but I was always drawn to the drums, playing with screwdrivers or whatever because they always hid the drumsticks,” he recalls with a laugh.

Abraham had a bit of a different lead up, however, starting in the last place you’d expect to find a fan of Mineral and Jawbreaker. “I started in fourth grade with the clarinet,

so I was always playing classical music,” he says, followed by the ribbing of some of his band mates, to which he jokingly retorts, “I didn’t just bang on shit, I knew how to read music.” Continuing, he adds, “I played all the way through high school, but then it wasn’t as cool anymore, so I wanted to pick up an instrument and I didn’t have the patience to learn how to use all four fingers to play chords, so I picked up the bass guitar so I could play one string at a time.” He’s joking. Kind of.

Though Abraham explains his affinity for bass with a tinge of sarcasm, he and his band mates have worked tirelessly to create a style of atmospheric rock with a cinematic storytelling scope that is distinctly their own, even when “artsy” indie bands have become dime-a-dozen. And while many bands spout off egotism in the form of trite clichés about how their music defies whatever, these five guys can take a little pride in the actualization of this without having to talk it up for convincing.

“I’ve learned how to respect people I don’t agree with,” says Del Fonzo. “We aim to collaborate on ideas to come up with something that maybe hasn’t been done before. At times we’re all testing each others’ patience, sometimes we get irritated with each other, but our best music comes out of that kind of stuff. Not that we’re fighting, but that

we got through it and made good decisions, and I’ve never experienced that before this band.”

Admittedly, Abraham does say, “I’m still impatient a little bit, but I’ve learned how to work with people better, just taking in other people’s ideas and not being stubborn about things. Our band works as a democracy and having to vote all the time makes you understand that sometimes you can’t have things your way.”

Even so, the band has built their foundation on a mutual appreciation of each other’s abilities and ideas, which they display in their music as well as outside of it. “Having five little mini-marriages, some go better than others, but they’re all of equal importance,” says Scavo, though he jokes, “There’ve been a few nights sleeping on the couch” as well.

“There are a lot of chances for failure when you’re in a band and there are a lot of chances to distract yourself from why you’re really doing it,” says Scavo, “but you can’t let small failures get in the way of what you’re trying to achieve.” While fully aware of his idealism and admitting that maintaining that principle is still the biggest challenge he faces, Scavo and his band can stand by their claims of uniqueness by actually bringing something other artsy elitists don’t: a little optimism.

Picasso can eat his heart out.

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