Biography
The seed for A. Plot was planted in 1981, when Kevin Young accosted Neale Brassell in the plumbing department of Scarborough Lumber in Scotts Valley, California. After some animated discussion brought on by the "Yes - Drama" shirt Neale was wearing, they soon discovered that both were musicians and, as tends to happen, soon it was agreed that "we should jam sometime".
After a few fits and starts over the next couple years working with other musicians (who were perfectly good players but wanted a different direction musically), Neale decided "screw this" and whipped out his hammer and Skilsaw and built a more-or-less soundproof practice studio on the back of his property and told Kevin, "We're starting our own band with just one rule: We play nothing but our own music." Other like-minded musicians were rounded up and the real story of A. Plot began.
Over the next six years A. Plot became reasonably successful in the Santa Cruz music scene, playing regularly in a number of venues, including opening a weekend show for a national touring act a time or two at The Catalyst, the premier club in the area. But the guys felt that the music was just never living up to its potential, mostly because of having to be tailored to a nightclub dance audience. After the fourth departure of a drummer, A. Plot decided to hang it up for for a while in 1989. In the nineties Kevin moved to southern California and Neale moved to St Louis Missouri… was the A. Plot story over?
Fast forward to Spring of 2014. Kevin was introduced to computer-based digital recording and found himself with some time on his hands and thought… why not? Sitting down with a guitar and a portable keyboard, he recorded a couple of A. Plot songs and thus inspired, commenced a creative songwriting binge that caught even him by surprise. Meanwhile, Kevin and Neale had remained good friends over the years despite the distance. In June Neale visited and was so blown away upon hearing "King Of Bees" (one of the new songs), and with Kevin's urging, he jumped into the fray. Dusting off his keyboards and, upon realizing his newest one was from 1991, going out and purchasing a couple of powerful new synths as well as a full digital production workstation, Neale started working on the songs that Kevin was writing. The internet sizzled with gigabytes of songfiles being sent back and forth. A. Plot was back in business, and better than ever!
After several months of intense writing, editing, and recording, the guys realized that, well, now what do we do? They had well over a CD's worth of music completed. Almost as a joke, Neale said they might as well just do a double CD and really break all the rules. Kevin agreed and soon two CD's worth of music was completed. After deciding they might as well finish jumping off the cliff, a record company and a publishing company were formed and in March of 2015, "Lipstick Smears & War Machines" (the album title is a line in the closing song, "Tuesday At Noon") became a reality so for the love of God BUY IT!
But the story continues! Kevin never even took a breather before starting on more new music, and with the new songs, was shooting for something even better. The album was met with warm reception but something was missing. Yes, it was possible to put out serious music with just a couple of guys playing everything, but really, rock music demands a real rhythm section. What to do? And then fate intervened. Back in the early nineties when A. Plot was on hiatus, the guys had met Sam and Scott Prather, who just happened to be a bassist and drummer. There were a few practice sessions and things sounded amazing. But life intervened and nothing ever came of it. But Sam and Scott never forgot those few sessions, and now almost 25 years later, they stumbled upon A. Plot's new incarnation. Blown away by the new songs, they prompty offered up their bass and drum skills.
And so, nearly two years later in January of 2017, A. Plot released their second album, "Secrets Of The Rabbit Hole", yet another double-CD with over two hours of music! Apparently nobody told the guys that no indie band ever released back-to-back double CDs, so they did it because they could. The second album displays the same cinematic scope and razor-sharp lyrics of the first album but with an even wider and deeper sonic palette. So please buy it and be prepared to be blown away!
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
