Biography

Sometimes it seems as though The Great Unknowns are trying very hard to live up to their name. The alt-country band recorded its first album in the basement of a college dorm in Boston on a shoestring budget in 2003, intending to press just enough copies for friends and family members. But the record found its way into the hands of Indigo Girl Amy Ray, who declared it “one of the best things I have heard this year” and released it on her independent label, Daemon Records.

The record sold beyond label expectations, and picked up glowing reviews from music critics who predicted that the band would soon invalidate the “Unknown” portion of its name. No Depression columnist Rick Cornell confessed, “I can’t stop playing this disc”, and named it one of the top ten releases of 2004. Maxim called it “unpretentious heartland rock.”

Most bands would try to ride that sort of success to fame and fortune, but not the GUs. After 2005, they all but disappeared for five years, and band members moved on to other projects. During that time, singer and primary songwriter Becky Warren struggled with a marriage that had become troubled when her soldier husband returned from Iraq with PTSD. When the marriage ended in 2010, Warren realized she had a lot to say, and wrote furiously, penning 12 new songs about love, loss, and the life-altering effects of war.

The band—which, along with Warren, is Andy Eggers on drums, Altay Guvench on bass, and Avril Smith on guitar—re-emerged, and fans quickly showed they hadn’t forgotten about the band during the five-year hiatus. After putting out a fundraising appeal to their now-dusty mailing list, the GUs attracted more than $8600 in contributions from people eager to hear a second album. This time, the band opted to record at Bias Studios near Washington, DC, where half the band now lives.

The new Great Unknowns album, Homefront, proves that the band can pick up right where it left off–with expertly crafted, country-tinged rock songs driven by twangy guitar hooks and powerful vocals. And Homefront proves something else as well: that if a band is truly great, no matter how far they run from it, the music eventually finds them.