Benevento-Russo Duo - October 6, 2006
w/ Chris Harford's Band of Changes
Far from its initiation, when the Duo was conceptualized for economy, these days the band remains a twosome out of pure artistic desire. "Limiting yourself leads to new discovery,” says Benevento. As an example, he offers that the title track of their new album, Play Pause Stop, was an exercise in stringing chords together from one single note. The restriction resulted in an incredibly creative and entertaining powerhouse of a song. Much like the idea of the Duo itself.

Russo began to program some of Benevento’s parts into his drum pads, and Benevento learned how to play foot bass. Time on the road, both on and off stage, has led to a group intuition and collective consciousness. Now that they know how to seamlessly complement each other and custom compose for the Duo, Russo remarks that their unique format has been far more liberating than limiting. "That’s my favorite thing about this," he says. "I don’t feel like there’s a melodic or a rhythmic leader — Marco can bang out these rhythms, and we can go back and forth melodically."

Play Pause Stop is the culmination of all these newly mastered techniques. Whereas the band once relied on improvisation as it worked through the mechanics of being two musicians emulating more, the band is now focused on its songwriting craft and composing concise rock instrumentals.

"The new album is grittier than the previous one," says Benevento. "I went to Berklee College of Music and I was way into jazz, so I wanted to get my chops together," he says of the band’s jazz odyssey beginnings. "But my roots are in rock and it’s really challenging to write a rock song in a duo setting. That’s what we’re into right now."

learn more about Benevento-Russo Duo

Chris Harford began writing songs and playing guitar while attending Princeton High School in the mid-70s. A self-taught player and painter with a degree in performance art from Massachusetts College of Art, his first glimpse of indie success came in the early 80s with Three Colors, a self-propelled recording band based in Boston (and comprised of Harford, Hub Moore of Slash/London's HUB and Dana Colley of DreamWorks' Morphine).

learn more about Chris Harford

Band Information
The Duo
Marco Benevento — B-3 organ, Wurlitzer, circuit bent toys
Joe Russo — drums

Chris Harford's Band of Changes
Chris Harford — vocals, guitar
Scott Metzger — guitar
Dave Dreiwitz — bass
Joe Russo — drums