SO YOU WANNA BE A ROCK 'N' ROLL STAR

Kevin Loyd, front man for Carp, screamed out his lyrics at Jeremiah's.

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 10, 1999

Jonny Ford has been singing for more than an hour and is ready for a break. The front man for the Cape Girardeau band Solid State, he's excited about an upcoming performance at Jeremiah's.

A waiter at El Chico's, Ford said he lives for the performances.

"We've been rehearsing for three months for this gig," he said of the show at Jeremiah's.

The rehearsal space is a cramped basement room on Sprigg Street. The two guitar players and the drummer face each other, dodging amplifiers in the small space. Ford sings from the doorway, sometimes backing into a narrow hallway to hear himself.

Posters on the walls pay homage to Jimi Hendrix and other great guitar players like Keith Richards and Kurt Cobain.

At any one time, half the band lives there. They manage not to drive their neighbors crazy with rehearsals because the football players who live upstairs like the music and even sometimes join them with a little freestyle rap of their own.

House rule: If you don't like someone's thumping, turn up your own music or go somewhere else for awhile.

"We don't fight and try to be courteous to one another," Ford said.

Ford, 26, is the oldest member of the band.

Bass player Ed Strauser, 22, drummer Bryan West, 20, and former guitar player Lance Daugherty started Solid State in 1997.

Daugherty later quit the band to go to school and was replaced by Alex Finney, 22.

The group's specialty is high intensity hip hop and rock jams.

They play original songs as well as covers of classic rock songs by the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.

Members describe the band's music as an organic, collaborative effort.

Ford writes the lyrics, and the music "just kind of shows up when we jam," Strauser said.

"A lot of bands feel forced to play more covers if they want to get jobs. We've been an original band for two years," Ford said.

He's hard pressed to describe Solid State's genre.

"Funk, rap, rock, high energy dance music with really fat grooves -- that's what we are," he said.

"There are so many labels on today's music. I don't think we fit into any one category.

"It's 1999 rock 'n' roll, it's what rock sounds like today," Ford said.

Sitting on a worn couch with the smell of burnt pizza wafting around them, the band is asked what they hope tomorrow's performance will lead to.

They banter and tell some jokes about getting girls and making tons of money.

Band manager Matthew "Skip" Jones, 20, is more concrete. He said he just hopes to get them a big show on New Year's Eve.

Finally, Finney takes a chance. "It's not really about those things. I think everybody has stars in their eyes.

Ford adds, "I think the stars are in our hearts."

Strauser changes the subject with, "Let's play some more."

All agree it's time to get back to rehearsal and they launch into Limp Bizkit's "Stuck."

Kevin Loyd, lead singer for Carp, drops by and joins Ford on the vocals.

Carp is scheduled to open for Solid State the next night, but Loyd said things look iffy because his drummer has the flu.

Then they slip into West's favorite, the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." Ford joins West on the drums for that one.

West likes the rigor of "Devil." "It's about getting up there and giving it everything you've got, you know?"

After a second set and back on the topic of the future, Ford says, "I'd like to make it because it's what I believe in."

He's superstitious. Jimi Hendrix' birth date has special significance, as does the fact that this is Solid State's first concert of 1999.

For every performance he brings along candles and a "magic carpet" on which he has drawn constellations and other symbols.

"I started something with this band two years ago and I think I've been on a quest for 26 years," he said. "We've never been this confident, this tight, this solid."