New band wants to rock you and your kids both

Since his days as an Ohio University student, Tony Xenos has been a driving force in local bands including the Cactus Pears and Rubberband Racecar Go. And his latest musical outfit cranks out all the melodic hooks and soaring pop-rock harmonies that fans will quickly spot as his trademarks.  

Flyaway Saturn features a new twist, however, with Xenos and bandmates Geoff Osterland, Eleni Zulia and Clay Flaherty aiming for a broader audience, age-wise, than that of most rock bands. Let's put it this way: If you plan on attending one of their shows, you can leave your legal ID at home, and you won't need to hire a babysitter.

Flyaway Saturn wants to play music appealing to kids "“ we're talking as young as single-digit ages here "“ but which their parents can also hear without cringing. Even the band's name was chosen with this idea in mind, Xenos said.

"I think we were looking for something spacey, kind of attention-getting for kids, but not too 'kiddie,' because that would turn off the parents," he confided. "We didn't want to be 'The Wiggles,' or something like that." (Another proposed name, he recalled, was "Jupiter Zenharmonic.")

In one sense, Flyaway Saturn represents an answer to that perennial question: What does a rock-and-roller do when he grows up? Xenos "“ who's now graduated from OU, married, and teaching math at a Vinton County high school "“ said the band was a kind of logical progression for him and the other members.

"It came out of the Cactus Pears, and realizing that our friends were older "“ they couldn't come to the shows," he explained. "People would say, 'We'd love to come see you again, but we've got to get a sitter,' or 'That's pretty late for us to be up.'"

Though he and his wife Courtney don't have kids of their own, Xenos said, he was also beginning to realize that "I don't get much out of the bar scene any more," and that one of the things he likes best about live performance is getting the audience involved. Put it all together, and you've got a recipe for an "all-ages" band like Flyaway Saturn.

Even in his earlier bands, the upbeat, often playful songs Xenos tends to write were pretty kid-friendly; when the Cactus Pears recorded their first cassette release, he said, they ended up selling a lot of them to very young fans. "People were always saying, 'You people ought to be playing to kids,'" he recalled. "It really just dawned on me last year "“ this is where it's been going for a long time."

Though he's a teacher and has worked with younger children as a camp counselor, Xenos admitted he's a newbie at the art of songwriting for the shorties. (He doesn't even own any Raffi CDs, for goodness sake.) In fact, he said, Flyaway Saturn's six-song debut EP contains only one tune "written specifically for kids," called "Taking a Turn."

Others include a revamped version of a Cactus Pears tune, "Green Rubber Boots," and an even older number, "What You Don't Say," revived from Xenos' early days with a band called Brinker's Edge. Live shows also feature selected covers catchy enough for a kid to groove on, like "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard."

Though he's learning as he goes along, Xenos suggested, the plan is not to write lyrics about emotionally supportive teddy bears or the virtues of cleaning your plate, but to create music that can get kids "“ and their parents "“ up and moving in fun, interactive ways during live shows. One tune on the EP, for example, is about as far as you can get from The Wiggles "“ a fact that might be gleaned from its title, "Memoirs Our Parents Never Wrote."

Though the song dabbles in "post-modernism," according to Xenos "“ always a hot topic with the grade-school crowd "“ it also contains a secret ingredient: it sounds like a train. So while Xenos sings about the poignancy of pre-fab shopping malls designed to evoke small-town innocence, the band choo-choos along like crazy and the audience "“ as it did at a recent show "“ charges around the room in a locomotive conga line.

Every tune has a similar window for audience participation; the rocking "Taking a Turn," for example, includes a rousing command to "stomp your feet with me! Come on now and scream!" In its three months of existence, Flyaway Saturn has been constantly experimenting with new ways to lively up its shows, including bubbles, balloon spacecraft and plenty of designated yelling; for "Taking a Turn," the band has tried putting audience members in designated "circles of rock," to show off their dance moves. They've also brought kids into the show by sampling their spoken phrases, then punching them into songs.

Flyaway Saturn will appear next at the Athens Public Library at 6 p.m. today (Monday), in a free-admission show that Xenos promised "is going to have a lot of interaction," and half of whose CD-sale proceeds will benefit the library. On Aug. 1, the band will play the Athens Farmers Market, and on Aug. 15, it's scheduled to appear at ARTS/WEST in Athens. For more information, check out the band's current Web site at http://www.reverbnation.com/flyawaysaturn.