Music therapy for 'Days'

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Mar 28, 2008 by Scott Iwasaki Deseret Morning News

Guitarist/vocalist Bryan Lewis grew up in a religious home and didn't listen to a lot of rock music in his younger days.

"My dad was a minister," said Lewis, the lead guitar and vocalist for Numbered Days. "He didn't want rock music in the house because it wasn't wholesome. But I did hear a lot of music growing up. We sang a lot of inspirational music as a family."

But as with some teenagers, Lewis found rock music on his own.

"I dropped in on the whole grunge thing," he said during a phone call from his home in New York. "Stone Temple Pilots and Alice in Chains were my main choices. And I eventually got a guitar and ended up playing in a cover band when I lived in Alaska."

The cover band was interesting, Lewis said. "We played anywhere and anything. We did Michael Jackson to doo-wop to country music to rock."

While the cover band was great at the time -- each individual band member pulled $2,400 a month -- Lewis felt the tweak of an identity crisis.

"After so many songs I've sung in different voices, I started to ask myself what my real voice was. You know, 'What do I really sound like when I'm singing as Bryan Lewis?'"

So, in 2003, Lewis and bassist Chris Halleck formed Numbered Days, recruiting guitarist Greg Stone.

From there the challenge was finding a drummer that not only fit musically but also had the personality to gel with the others.

"We auditioned a lot of drummers," Lewis said. "We found some great drummers who lacked the dedication. And we found some great drummers who partied too much.

"As a working band, we take our music seriously and don't binge," he said. "We're casual partiers. Luckily, we found Andrew (Phillips). And he's a great drummer who also has our work ethic."

Still, Lewis said, while the band members are trying to make Numbered Days a full-time career, they have other jobs as well.

"I'm a 911 operator," Lewis said, "but I have spent 15 years in law enforcement. My last job in that capacity was as a floor detective in a department store."

Some songs on Numbered Days' album "Under the Umbilical Tree" are about Lewis' experiences from his detective days and about other things from his life.

"I don't really think about how the songs will affect people who listen to them," he said. "There's a song called 'Formidable Truth' that is about my cousin's suicide.

"I looked up to him. He was a straight-A student in high school. He was on the varsity football team, and he was on the wrestling team. He had everything going for him, and then one night he shot himself in the heart.

He was left in a lurch. "My hero was there one minute and gone the next."

During one Numbered Days acoustic show, there was a girl in the front row who became teary during the first few numbers, Lewis said. "We were playing at a library where we play each year. And by the time the set was over, she was really crying.

"My first thought was, 'Were we that bad?' But then she came up to me and said, 'You are singing songs that have happened to me.' And that stayed with me to this day."

He said you never know what touches people. "To me, the songs I write are therapy, but to others, they can mean anything."

If you go ...

What: Numbered Days, April 3

Where: Club Vegas, 445 S. 400 West

When: Thursday

How much: $8

Phone: 364-8347

Web: www.clubvegas.org

E-mail: scott@desnews.com