Las Vegas Weekly

August 22, 2009 · 12:21 AM

Never too young to give

By Allison Duck

Photo: Fred Morledge

Adults aren’t the only ones who can rock out for charity. Local bands AndSheWhispered, Sprockets, Cross Out These Eyes, When Gods Fall and Take Cover! Atlas! have put together the all ages Rise Up for Muscular Dystrophy concert to benefit the charity Jerry’s Kids.

While many of the various bands’ members are still in high school, they pooled their resources and contacts to put together a fully sponsored event complete with gift bags for the first three hundred guests.

Tyler Simmons, guitarist for AndSheWhispered, chatted with the Weekly about his thoughts on the Vegas all ages scene and how his band rose from the ashes of other local groups.

How did AndSheWhispered come together as its own group?

My old band, Valhalla, always played with our bass player, Taylor Adsit’s old band, Defined by Struggle. Our singer George Delacruz, was in a band named Mortrum and we played with them too. The rest were just acquaintances we had from being friends with people. It was just kind of good timing as people were looking to leave their other bands for something new.

How old were you when you first starting performing real gigs around town?

I was 12 or 13 when I started performing gigs, just small things around town. There used to be more bars that were all ages when it came to their shows. H.B.’s Italian Restaurant used to have shows and we would play at Zia Records. Last year, when we started getting bigger, we were playing Jillian’s a lot.

The vocals on your tracks have two distinct sounds; do you have dual lead singers?

George Delacruz does the vocals so he does both of those sounds. His screaming and his singing voices are very different.

With venues like The Farm and The Box Office, what do you think about the state of the local all ages scene?

It’s really fun playing shows at The Farm, but it just seems like the scene isn’t as strong as it used to be. That is what we are trying to help.

Do you think the closing of Jillian’s put a damper on the scene?

I think the main thing is people just can’t afford to just go to shows anymore. That’s what it comes down to. Jillian’s was the big venue. Everything sounded good; it was just perfect there. When it closed, I think kids just didn’t know where to go.

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