Local Music scene alive and well – ACIDIC rocks North Park

The North Park Music Thing Music Festival took place in August and featured some of the best local bands in addition to great a conference schedule including business panel discussion, workshops, and demos. Over 100 music acts performed throughout North Park on 14 stages.

All proceeds from the event were donated to the San Diego Music Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses its efforts on local musician assistance, music education, professional development, live performance and the annual San Diego Music Awards show recognizing creative achievement in the San Diego music community.

One so-cal modern rock band that made a great impression was ACIDIC, who performed at the Ruby Room on Friday. We caught up with the band after their performance.

They just finished their first national tour opening for Hawthorne Heights in support of their second album, “Getting Lucky.” They formed the band back in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2009 when Ted Dubrawski and Mike Thompson joined Michael Gossard and Matt Whitaker that the group was complete.

They tell us that the name ACIDIC came from the side of a soda can. “We needed a different band name than Walking to Purgatory or whatever we called ourselves at the very beginning.”

When it came down to making their recent album, they turned to Andrew Bojanic and Liz Hooper, award-winning singer/songwriters/musicians from Australia, who produced “Getting Lucky.” Bojanic and Hooper have worked with people like Jason Mraz, Liz Phair, Hillary Duff, and Avril Lavigne. The band says they couldn’t have been more thrilled with how it worked out.

“They (Bojanic and Hooper) kept saying – “it all comes down to the song”! All they did was develop what we already had – into solid radio-friendly hits and everything just kind of accelerated from there.”

ACIDIC is coming off of their first national tour and they say it was incredible. “We were paired with an amazing headliner act – Hawthorne Heights – who showed us the ins and outs of touring. They were really great; and nice guys too. The other two bands in the lineup, The Story Changes and PM Today were just as awesome.  We’re a better band for having played with such a great headliner in such close proximity like that. It did wonders for us.”

They shared some of the best moments from the tour:

There were so many! I remember the first night, at the Marquis Theater in Denver – it was a fantastic show, our first one on tour ever. I will never forget it as long as I live. The fans just embraced us – they went nuts. It felt so good. Ted took off his shirt – that became kind of a specialty for him. The response was just the best; we were blown away.

Another great memory is of us mooning PM Today from our car on the way to the last stop in Albuquerque.

And on the way to Denver all the boxes of CDs and merch and stuff flew off the roof of our car and we had to run back down the highway to pick everything up. We had everything really solidly tied down too… I don’t know how we lucked out, but nothing got broken except for one ACIDIC frisbee – that I think got run over.

After completing the tour, the band stopped in San Diego to play the North Park Music Thing. The crowd was great. It may just be the nature of the event but everyone was friendly and accepting. Not to mention that their set was great, so that couldn’t have hurt.

“Everyone there made us feel at home. We were able to share our music which always makes us the happiest. We didn’t know anybody there so it was great to see how everybody was so receptive and you could see them tapping their feet and moving to our music. And when we see that happening in the room it only makes us want to rock out harder and make them move some more.”

When asked how they felt about San Diego and their performance, they said, “We had a lot of fun. Cool venue, comfortable, good sound. Ruby Room has a separate room with a pool table and there’s a coffee house in front that is open until 4am. We’d love to play there again. San Diego rocks!”

They are currently working on a new album and planning to tour again. “We’re definitely more touring and interacting with fans and undoubtedly some more strange shenanigans too.  We have some pretty amazing plans in the works, also another music video is in the planning stages, most likely to our song ‘The Big Bang.’” Look out for them on a lot of specialty shows on alternative rock radio, or they may be coming to a college near you.

So, there you have it. Another great band coming from So-Cal. With such a hot music scene it can be hard to keep tabs on all the great acts making their rounds around the city, state, and country. Definitely keep an eye out for ACIDIC because they have something great going for them.

Want to know more? Check them out at www.acidicband.com/, on Facebook , or Twitter.

Photos from NPMT: