By Kat Diltz
Staff Writer
When asked to describe his band, PlayFight in one word, vocalist Kyle Castellani jokingly replied, “RockaFunkBlues…does that count?”
From an audience’s perspective, it certainly does. As the recent winners of the 2014 Temecula Valley International Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award, PlayFight likes to blur the lines of musical genres, mixing upbeat, high-energy guitar riffs with smooth, modern blues rhythms and witty lyrics.
With Castellani fronting the band, Matt Clayton joined him as lead guitarist, Ross Garcia on bass and Noah Sherwin on drums. This memorable group of animated musicians is sure to exude motivation to hopeful performers. When Castellani was asked who or what inspired him, he says that it wasn’t a specific person or moment, “but I eventually made the decision that I wanted to do music for a living, and the [music] industry is a necessary evil…I still do it for the love of course, but sometimes it can seem like a conscious effort when thinking of music in terms of what the industry wants. Once the industry takes notice in you and expects you to play ‘the game’ it’s really easy to get wrapped up in the politics of it all.” As an independent band from San Diego, PlayFight goes against the grain of Hollywood’s expectations, being their own bosses and having all of the control.
The band is very lyric and music-driven, but Castellani says that the music is what kicks off his songwriting process.
“I’ve always taken the approach that first you find what feels good, then you figure out what the song is trying to say, then you set your personal ego aside and cater to the song’s message, not the one you want for it…it allows me to be a part of [the song], not the other way around.”
PlayFight’s EP, Mutt, contains 5 distinguishable tracks, with the raw rock n’ roll jam “Big Brother” being Castellani’s personal favorite, contrasting to the bluesy, suggestive track “Around A Woman;” the most prominent song on the EP.
Mutt is now available on iTunes, SoundCloud and PlayFight’s official merchandise store.