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A Letter to remember
By Shannon Yoshida
syoshida@mscd.edu

Photo by Aaron Thackeray, courtesy of Letters From the Front Letters From the Front are single-handedly taking the music world by storm. From left, Dan Aid, Steve Maclean, Tommy Monette, Tony Daigle and Yoshikawa.

What do one-handed guitar players, mohawks and Pat Benatar covers have in common? Letters From the Front sports them all.

Touring to promote their second album, War Torn Lullabies, This Side of the Grave, their war-themed titles give way to the story behind their name.

"I have a childhood friend who has been in Iraq for a number of years,” frontman Tommy Monette said. “He e-mails us every week with letters from the front.”

This five-man music machine has taken quite the journey getting to where they are now. The intricate workings of the music industry always keep them busy, especially for the band’s newest member and guitarist, Dan Aid.

“I’m an actor as well, and I play in another group,” Aid said. “Oh, and I play with one hand. When I was 12 years old I was electrocuted, and I had to have my hand amputated.”

His sense of humor lightens the circumstances a bit, as he has found a way to play around it.

“We came up with the system that I use now, which is a sports band and a paint stick.” Watching Aid is mind-boggling. As a right-hand amputee, he strums with the paint stick attached to his right arm, while his left hand executes the chords.

Aid has more than proven himself, and the band is now an impressive act.

Before leaving for their tour of Texas and Nebraska, Monette said, “The best thing about being on tour, besides lighting Tony’s socks on fire, is playing … every day.”

Drummer Tony Daigle replied more thoughtfully: “Driving eight hours to play a 20-minute set is why we do it.”

The group has had their fair share of hotel parties at the Holiday Inn, which generally upsets Daigle, since that is where he works. For the band, though, it is a necessary relief.

“You’re trapped in a van with four other guys that are pretty much your girlfriends, except you don’t have sex with them,” bass player Yoshikawa said.

If a 20-minute set is worth all that trouble, The Front must deliver to their crowd. Most of the group has a classical-music background. Monette has played classical piano since he was 3 years old. Steve Maclean played the trumpet from second grade all the way through college. As an 8-year-old, Aid played folk songs on his first acoustic guitar with his dad. On the other hand, Yoshikawa admitted that an Iron Maiden album changed his life.

Their style has changed immensely since morphing into a meld of punkish cadence and brash vocals. Their elements interact like vinegar and baking soda, erupting with a noise tight and perfected yet seemingly impulsive. The Front’s performance welcomes the multitude of fans to the front of the stage in hopes of getting a better listen to Monette’s lyrics or to encourage a bigger and better encore.

On a personal level, the devotion it takes to be in a band weighs heavily on relationships. “It puts us in a very vulnerable position,” Daigle said. “A lot of people who talk to us just see us for being on the stage rather than the people who we are. So that puts us all pretty much in a bad position for relationships.”

As they laughed, Yoshikawa added, “The band makes us realize that we’ve made bad choices.”