How Omaha created The Faint

riverfrontitmes.com, 3/14/07 - Whether they're playing all-ages venues or arenas, indie superstars the Faint make their fans dance, dance, dance.: "The Faint developed such sensibilities in Omaha, during a period (1995-'99) when, thanks to a paucity of all-ages venues, the city's available gigs for nascent bands were mostly house parties.

'Everything came out of a scene as opposed to anybody trying to get record deals,' Petersen says. 'It was just, 'Hey, there's this show happening in a couple weeks, they need a band, let's be that band.' A stage is very much a barrier between the band and the audience. When you're at a party, everybody's one foot away from each other.'

Other than the first concert he ever saw (Night Ranger, with Weird Al Yankovic opening), Petersen's earliest live-music memories involved local acts. He discovered the city's do-it-yourself scene after stumbling across a hardcore bill at a polka ballroom.

'It was like, 'Holy shit, this whole world exists,'' he says. 'It sparked my interest in seeing music in a different way, as opposed to 'music is what I hear on the radio.' Well, there's a whole lot of other kinds of music too, and a whole lot of people just like me playing it. That's probably more profound than any big concert I've ever been to.'

In 2002, after years of gigs at 'crummy all-ages venues,' the Faint became a 'big concert' band, opening for No Doubt in what Petersen calls a calculated experiment 'to see how the other half toured.'

'It was positive in that we learned a lot from it,' he says. 'Unfortunately I think we learned everything we needed to know after three shows, and we'd signed on for two-and-a-half months. It's really hard to play to people who just don't give a shit. It beats you down. Thankfully we were doing our own shows on their days off, and those kept us going. It was like, 'This is why we do this, suck it up.''"

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