Don't miss 'America's Band' and guitar heroes Polyphia at District Live

America’s Band: Polyphia bring guitar pyrotechnics to District Live

Weedle-e-weedle-e-weedle-eEEEee!

Okay, it’s difficult to capture the ecstatic squeal of an electric guitar in words, but you get the idea.

Polyphia are some of the most innovative progenitors of progressive guitar music today and are performing at District Live on Sept. 6.

Polyphia formed in Plano, Texas, in 2010 and features guitar virtuosos Tim Hensen and Scott LePage, as well as the powerful rhythm section of bassist Clay Gober and drummer Clay Aeschliman.

Polyphia built up a loyal fanbase through years of viral Youtube videos that allowed fans to watch the band develop from scrawny guitar shredders to technically dazzling guitar heroes. Their latest video for “Playing God” has wracked up 29 million views, and there is a veritable cottage industry built around music Youtubers reacting to, or attempting to replicate, Polyphia’s mind-blowing guitar riffs.

Polyphia have released four acclaimed albums including their latest, “Remember You Will Die,” which takes the band in adventurous new directions.

Smash and Grub: Two Tides’ onsite food truck, Crispi, brings on the nostalgia

The Sequel: The Shop Around the Corner: Books on Bay writes new chapter at new location

Prize of a Lifetime: Game show icon Bob Barker, tanned and charming host of 'The Price is Right,' dies at 99

'We just liked to shred'

Hensen and LePage were lifelong acquaintances, having gone to the same schools since kindergarten.

“I knew he played guitar, and he probably knew I played guitar also,” said LePage over the phone. “We would really only hangout at a mutual friend’s sleepover or something like that. Then in high school we actually started playing guitar with each other one day. It was like, ‘Wow, you’re really good!’ and ‘Wow, you’re really good, too! Here, try this riff I wrote.’ We just started playing each other’s s*** perfectly. We knew the same techniques, so when it came to writing riffs we were very fluent. We never stopped writing music together.”

Although Hensen and LePage were coming from the same heavy metal foundation, their techniques eventually began to develop into different but complementary styles.

“We just liked to shred,” explained LePage. “We like death metal and stuff. Our dad’s played ‘dad guitar’ as we call it. It was easy for us to mend our styles together because it was the same style. But now, as we’ve grown into what we are now, it’s more Tim’s style and my style. I like the leads and solo-y shreddy stuff still, but I’ve expanded on that in a way. I also like writing beats, so I try to mix the two as best I can. The reason I like to do that is because it’s hard to make it tasteful, so it’s more of the challenge of, ‘I probably need to make this cool, if I just did it right.’ Still working on that, but hopefully I’ve done it well up to this point.

“Tim’s style, he gets these chords and puts the lead inside of the chord. He’s got this chord/melody going on. His idea is the whole riff and melody should be able to be played on one guitar, so you should be able to bob your head to the rhythm on the guitar.”

With tongue firmly in cheek, Polyphia refer to themselves as “America’s Band,” having borrowed the title from America’s Team the Dallas Cowboys. They even had custom t-shirts made at the mall while they bought snacks at Annie’s Pretzels.

“We started wearing them on stage, and people wanted the shirt, so we started selling them at the merch table, too,” said LePage.

New album features collaborations, pop and jazz infusions

As Polyphia have developed as musicians, with a dizzying array of sweep picks, hybrid picking, harmonics, and other pretzel-fingered techniques all seemingly happening in tandem, their songwriting has become more accessible.

While their 2014 debut, Muse, featured song after song of triumphant guitar shredding that conveyed the feeling of scaling Mount Olympus and then flying from the peak on the back of an eagle (I mean that in a good way), their latest album, Remember You Will Die, is a more dynamic affair that pulls inspiration from hip hop, New Orleans brass bands, trunk-rattling trap, video game music, J-Pop, metal, and even jazz fusion.

Longtime fans were particularly surprised by the presence of so many vocal features including rappers $not and Lil West, Deftone’s Chino Moreno, and bi-lingual pop singer Sophia Black.

“That was the one idea we had for this record that we really carried through,” said LePage. “We had to do a lot of vocal features. That was the one thing we hadn’t done a lot of yet, because we were still developing a sound that would work with vocals the way we would be comfortable doing.”

For metal heads, the appearance of the hyper-pop track “ABC,” featuring Black, was a shock to the system.

“That was the first approach to a real, full song where the vocal is the talent of the song,” said LePage. “There’s a guitar solo and riffs going on, but they’re background to support the vocals. When I was writing to that song, it was one of the first times I really had in mind, ‘Okay, let’s not go too crazy, and if we do go too crazy it’s going to be to support the melodies going on in the vocals.

“I feel like people were a little surprised to hear ‘ABC.’ They were like, ‘Wow, this is different. It barely sounds like Polyphia.’ We were trying to be versatile with that record because we want to be...not approachable, but I love being able to do whatever we want with records. This was a record where we were like, ‘Let’s just go balls-to-the-wall with it and really do whatever we want.’.”

Polyphia are used to bucking expectations by now. When some fans reacted harshly to a futurebass remix of their song “Light”, called “Lit,” rather than retreat, the band doubled down with their next EP, Most Hated.

“Our audience had definitely changed and it has definitely grown,” said LePage. “We lost some people along the way, but for everyone we lost, we gained multiple.”

“I’m still a metal head,” LePage added. “I just like having a little stuff for everyone.”

LePage promises a whole new show for this tour with crazy effects and songs they have never played live before. Some Polyphia songs are so difficult that even the band has to consider how hard they want to practice before they add them to the set-list.

“These songs take a lot of work and a lot of practice because we’re covering a lot of ground. New techniques that we’re doing like the thumping thing. This is the first record where we really bring that out. We got the nylon guitar stuff now, so that’s a whole different beast. And all of the styles. You can’t just throw them into the set. They have to be planned out and I like to capture the vibe of the set. I don’t just like to put songs in there. ‘Egodeath’ [featuring Steve Vai!] is definitely our unicorn in terms of that. We plan on doing it one day.”

If You Go >>

What: Polyphia

When: 8pm, Sept. 6

Where: District Live, 400 W. River St.

Cost: $40

Info: plantriverside.com

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Guitar heroes Polyphia take the stage at Savannah's District Live Sept 6