Most people play in their first band sometime in high school. But recent high school graduate Scottie Noonan — chief songwriter, singer and guitarist of Enid acoustic-pop act The Fossil Youth — is already an old pro, with half a decade of experience behind him.
“It’s helped me progress a lot quicker. A lot of people I know in bands started as recently as last year,” he said. “I’ve been playing in bands for about five already.”
Despite hundreds of hours clocked at rehearsals and shows across Central Oklahoma, the one quintessential band experience that had eluded Noonan was a real tour — until this summer. That’s when he hit the road for the first time, playing Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Arkansas.
“It was everything I dreamed it would be,” Noonan said. “It was also a lot more expensive than I ever imagined.”
He doesn’t mind the lighter wallet too much, however. He’ll just look at it as a graduation present to himself; now, his focus can center on a fledgling music career.
Forming in March of last year, The Fossil Youth has solidified into the cur rent lineup that includes Noonan, drummer Matt Goodman, guitarist Colton Manning and bassist Derek Neef.
The band has a five-song EP under its belt, with an acoustic EP due in the near future. Things are looking promising in terms of more touring, with managers, publicists and booking agents starting to take an interest in the group, whose music strikes a line between The Spill Canvas and The Rocket Summer. Sometime in early 2013, fans should be able to hear the outfit’s proper, full-length debut.
“We’re about to go record, and every song is totally different. One song is acoustic; another is pop-punk; another is this awkward folk thing,” Noonan said. “I’m weird like that. We’re about to just start saying we are rock. It’s too open ended to pin down.”
Some moments come as a departure from what was a mostly squeaky-clean track record.
“The main song, ‘Broken and Bruised,’ is different because I say the F-word in it,” Noonan said, “which, if you’ve listened to us before, is totally unexpected.”
The album finds Noonan and company taking a meta approach, writing an album that is about writing an album, with all the problems and headaches that come with youth and band life.
“This record is so much more personal than anything we’ve done before,” Noonan said. “How we feel about how some of our good friends were getting to tour and we weren’t. Well, until now.”
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2012.