Local rockers prepare to play Pointfest in St. Louis

Isabella, a hard-core sometimes screamo band based from Cape Girardeau, recently won the right to play at Pointfest, an outdoor rock festival held by a radio station in St. Louis. The band competed in prelims and finals, beating out St. Louis acts and others for a time slot Saturday at a time to be determined.

After a lineup change that added Tim Godlove and Josh Schindele, Isabella is Alex Bettinger (drums), Joel Kapp (guitar), Colt Buehler (bass), Tim Godlove (vocalist) and Josh Schindele (guitar). Bettinger and Schindele are from Cape Girardeau. Bettinger played drums while in high school at Cape Girardeau Central High and Schindele is a junior at the school.

SE Live took some answers from Bettinger about Isabella and playing Pointfest. For the full interview and to hear a few tracks from Isabella visit www.semissourian.com. For more music, visit the band's MySpace page, www.myspace.com/weareisabella.

SE Live: Where all do you guys play?

Alex Bettinger: We play pretty much from Kansas City over to about Chicago and then we play from Detroit down to about Memphis. We kind of travel around that area.

SEL: How long have you guys been playing as Isabella?

AB: We've been playing as Isabella for about a year now. Well, I guess technically three of us have been in Isabella for about a year. Two of us are about two months into it.

SEL: When Isabella record its EP?

AB: That was back in February, actually. We recorded four songs, which are up on our myspace now and we're going back hopefully at the end of the summer to finish cutting the other six songs for the CD.

SEL: You played the preliminary rounds for this contest in March. You said you found out on a Wednesday that you could play in a Monday slot?

AB: We had four days to get ready and everything. So in those four days we sold a bunch of tickets and we went up there and we took a bunch of people with us and we went up and we played our asses off and it worked. We won. That was back in March.

SEL: Were you guys nervous, knowing that you had to play in four days?

AB: We were especially because it was when Tim and Josh were both really new with us. I think that's what the big scare was. Me and Joel and Colt are pretty comfortable because we've been playing together for about a year now, but it was when we still hadn't gotten fully used to them yet. That was the most nervewracking part of the whole thing.

It worked out great. We won.

SEL: You categorize yourselves as hard-core/screamo on MySpace. Can you describe your sound?

AB: If you had to call us anything I guess you'd call us a hard-core band. We try to go for half and half.

SEL: Do you guys feel like you have enough fans to do gigs here? How do you feel about the alternative scene in Cape?

AB: Most of the bands that play around here are country bands or Dave Matthews cover bands, which is great for bar music, but that's not really what we do. Fists of Phoenix was really big about four or five years ago. And when they were really big, the music scene was really good down here. When they kind of faded out so did the scene.

Now that we're coming in and there are other bands like us that are becoming more popular, you know like Anthem, it's helped a lot. We're more of a venue band and not so much a bar band. I do think we're helping the music scene come back a lot here. But right now there's not much of a scene for us at all. That's why we play at so many extremes in the Midwest area.

SEL: How does Pointfest rank on your list of accomplishments and concerts?

AB: For Isabella, it's a really big deal. I mean obviously it's 10,000 people we're going to be playing in front of which is great exposure. The Point will be there. They'll taking pictures all day. It's a lot of really good exposure for us.

I think it'll be one of the biggest shows that I think Isabella has played yet. Other than this one, the finals that we played the other night -- that was huge, like 600 people at it. That's pretty ridiculous. We're used to playing in front of 150 to 200 people a night and that's great. and then all the sudden you're playing this show that outsold a national band the night before and you're just like wow, that's pretty cool.

SEL: So where does the name Isabella come from?

AB: When Isabella got started, Joel and I we went to McDonald's and at that McDonald's on my McDonald's cup it had a big bio sign about Clean Isabella at the time and we just kind of took it from that. I'm going to be honest with you, Joel and I are probably the only ones in Isabella who don't like that name, but it was better than anything else we could come up with at the time, and well it's just kind of stuck and we keep going with it. But yeah, it definitely all started with a McDonald's cup.