NIGHT AND DAY
Enjoy! has been delighting thevibrant Jersey Shore music scene formore than a decade. The bandrecently sat down for a Night & DayQ & A — get to know them a little bitbetter right here.
Q. HOW DID ENJOY! GET ITS START?A. We were all between original
bands in early 2002, and decided togo into the studio to have fun withsome cover material, something thatwas foreign to all of us. We broughtsome friends with us, who were enter-tained with what we were doing. Sowe decided to take the act public.We booked our first show summer
of 2002 in New Brunswick where wehad a specific set written out. Webrought a few of our friends, but wewere more excited about winning overthe others that were in the bar. Itwent extremely well. Our next gig wegot hired to do an all-day party, wherewe had to quadruple our sourcematerial, which was the best thingthat could’ve been demanded of us atthat time.From there, we just kept adding to
our material we could play out. Werealized early on that if we had thematerial, we would not want to do thesame show every night. We wanted togear each show to that night’s crowdor our mood, so that every show wasits own experience. We also wanted tomake sure that we were not playingthe same material every other coverband was playing (for example, “Amer-ican Girl” by Tom Petty, “Brown EyedGirl” by Van Morrison, etc.).In fact, if we knew another band
played a song, we moved on from it.We dug deeper. There’s just so muchgood music out there that isn’t played.People come to our shows to seewhat we are going to play next or torequest a song that they have never
heard another band play. We are nowup to 300 cover songs and 20originals we can pull from at any givenshow to play. Both Bruce Springsteenand David Bryan (Bon Jovikeyboardist) have caught Enjoy!shows and commented on how goodwe performed.
Q. WHERE DOES YOUR SUCCESSCOME FROM?A. Our success is due to our hard
work ethic. We’ve never canceled ashow. We make a lot of sacrifices,playing every weekend year round,with our summers being our busiestseason. This past summer the bandplayed 57 shows from Memorial Dayto Labor Day (102 days). Brendan(with all of his acoustic solo, duo andtrio shows) did 90 performances inthat span. Not a lot of time for familyand friends, but they come to ourshows to see us.Back in 2003, a good friend of the
band, Mark “Max” Mitchell, arrangedfor an audition which led to usbreaking in at the shore. Max tendedbar at the Riverside Inn (aka the Dive)in Cranford. We had played several bigshows for our local crowd at the Dive,when Max invited some employees ofLeggett’s to scout us out one night.This led to us getting a show down inManasquan, which led to Enjoy!Summer Sunday Nights in Manasqaun.This past summer we successfullycontinued our 12th consecutivesummer doing these Sunday nights,the past four years being atManasquan Beach House.
Q. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITECROWDS TO PLAY FOR?A. Our favorite crowds are a
receptive one. We have our favoritevenues, which is everywhere we'vestreamlined our schedule to play atthese days, but we also really likeplaying parties and weddings whereeveryone is there to have a good time. We will have played 15 weddings
this year, and over 100 in our band'scareer. We've gotten really good at it.Our weddings, like our shows, are notyour typical wedding, since we're nota typical wedding band. We have ourset list of 300-plus songs we do, andwe let the bride and groom customizetheir wedding from our playlist. Weadd keyboards and horns uponrequest as well, which is always a lotof fun for us … it keeps it interestingand powerful expanding the lineup.
Q. WHAT ABOUT RECORDING?A. We are getting more involved
with this aspect, as well as gettingbetter and more efficient at it.Brendan and Chris are releasing soloprojects of original material the sametime Enjoy! is releasing our first fulllength project of original material …with it all culminating in a triple albumrelease party at the Stone Pony onFriday, Jan. 9. A lot of our originalmaterial has made its way into our liveshows already, and it always is metwith a great response … the crowdcan sense our enthusiasm with thematerial and feeds of it. Many timeswe won’t announce it was an originaltune until the song is over, and it’s funto see the look of approval on the
faces of the people that were groovingto it. That sort of thing can getaddictive.And we have plenty of more
original material to document downthe road. We have a great studio thatwe use that we are very comfortablerecording at, The Music Factory inEngelwood, owned by good friend ofthe band Les Lovell. So more originalEnjoy! material will definitely be a partof our future.
Q. WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?A. The band just played our 1,150th
show in 13 years. We continue to growmusically and creatively. We like toplay, so the sky’s the limit. We have nointentions of slowing down any timesoon. Bigger shows, more privategigs/weddings, getting our originalsairplay on local radio, showssupporting bigger national acts, it’s allon Enjoy!’s radar. All you have to do iscontact the band through our website,enjoytheband.com.
ENJOY!
MEMBERSBrendan Brophy Vocals, Guitar,Piano, Writes OriginalsChris Soltis Guitar, Banjo,Ukulele, Vocals, Writes OriginalsJohn Soltis Bass, Mandolin, VocalsLou Donovan Drums, Percussion
ABOUTEnjoy! plays over 300 covers andhas close to 20 originals
ORIGINAL ALBUMTo be released at the Stone Pony inAsbury Park on Friday, Jan. 9
FOR MOREenjoytheband.com
BandPROFILEBandPROFILE
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More original music on the horizon for Enjoy!
