Thacker Dairy Road journey

Thursday, February 25, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Rebecca White, co-founder of local band Thacker Dairy Road surveys the cupcakes she's baked for bassist George Smith's birthday.

Decorated with large cylinder--shaped dollops of chocolate, the dessert is disturbingly anatomical in appearance. White shrugs her shoulders and says they still taste good even if they look weird.

That's the same spunky resilience that has kept Thacker Dairy Road a band since 2004, despite numerous personnel changes and miles of distance between band members.

On a recent Sunday afternoon in Winston-Salem, members of Thacker Dairy Road are practicing for their CD launch party in a blue room with padded walls and coils of black cords that give the floor the illusion of a snake-pit.

Lead singer, 25-year-old Andrea Thorne, is having technical difficulty with her microphone. She calls to engineer Charlie Starr, who pops out of a room like a Jack-in-the-Box to help.

"Yeah, we keep him in the closet until we need him," Josh Casstevens deadpans, cradling his bright blue Fender Telecaster guitar decorated with pastel flowers.

The band nails the song, "Making Me Feel," with serious verve as 5-foot-1-inch tall Thorne belts out the lyrics, "Take my hand, make me understand myself better than before/Alleviate the pain, take away the game I thought I was winning."

"Jonathan, you've got to hold that beat until I'm done," Thorne says.

"Don't worry, I will for the launch party," says drummer Jonathan McMillan.

"You can steal my thunder," Casstevens says. "And you can steal George's thunder, but don't mess with her thunder," he says, teasing Thorne.

"Are you saying I don't have thunder?" White asks, pointing her fiddle bow at Casstevens. "Do I need to go buy some thunder?"

"Yeah," Thorne quips. "You can get it at the same place you got those cupcakes."

The original Thacker Dairy Road band hatched six years ago by White and co-founder Jeff Yetter in southeast Greensboro. Their vision was to have a different sound but one that people could sing and dance to.

About a year and a half ago, former lead singer Molly McGinn left to start her own band. The existing band needed a new lead singer, so Thorne, who had sung in church and in school choirs, decided to audition.

White says, "After Andrea (Thorne) left the audition, my husband Jeremy said, 'Well, I guess you've just hired your new lead singer."

With the band complete, Thacker Dairy Road began practicing for its first album. While the songs are penned by White, Thorne and Casstevens, the whole band gets credit for song arrangement.

The result is an eclectic and musically accomplished compilation of 11 tunes ranging from sultry, "Sugar," to remorseful, "Regretful Seeds," to a heavenly duo sung a cappella by White and Thorne at the end of track 10, "Sweet Silence."

"Our band has been through a lot, but we're stronger for it and better musicians," White says. "We've tried to be there for each other, and that kind of commitment makes me proud."

This spring, White will play fiddle with Jim Avett at MerleFest. She plays on his new CD, "Tribes," and Thorne also sings harmony.

White also will move four and a half hours from Greensboro to Highlands, where she is "choosing to be with my husband, the love of my life, and commute to Greensboro for my passion."

In the meantime, the members of Thacker Dairy Road are psyched about their first album and release party. Another CD is already in the works, and they hope to find management soon and book tours.

"I feel like we're looking over the edge of a cliff," White says. "We feel like at our launch party, we'll just jump off and open our parachutes and fly."



Contact Carole Perkins at cpguilford@aol.com