The Main Squeeze: One of Bloomington's hottest bands works to gain national attention

It started with oranges, piles and piles of oranges pouring out of a fridge. At least, the name did.

The Main Squeeze, recently one of Bloomington’s  more buzzed-about bands, found its moniker in a dream, when the band’s now-former drummer had one that he was thirsty. He visualized going downstairs only to find a fridge full of oranges, which he squeezed into his mouth one-by-one, standing in front of a neon sign that flashed, “The Main Squeeze.”

“He had a dream the night before our first show,” keyboardist Ben “Smiley” Silverstein  said. “We ended up going with that.”

The group has changed its complexion a bit since then, with both a new drummer and new lead vocalist from the original lineup. Even though they all came from different hometowns or states, the current lineup of Silverstein, singer Corey Frye,  guitarist Max Newman,  bassist Willie Robinson  and drummer Reuben Gingrich  came together rather easily.

Silverstein said he and Newman met at a summer camp in upstate New York  during high school. They clicked almost immediately.

“We knew we wanted to play music together from that time,” Silverstein said. “When Max came to IU, then, he looked me up and we started playing.”

Music has been a large part of both of their lives for a long time. Silverstein found his keyboard muse through piano lessons, while Newman has been playing the cello since he was in first grade. He even came to the Jacobs School of Music  from his hometown of New York City  to play cello.

“By the time I was here as a freshman I was already really into blues and rock guitar and that,” Newman said. “So my sophomore year I actually gave up playing cello at the level I had been.”

He added that he definitely wanted to work the cello into one of the band’s songs at some point. Given the band’s diverse group of influences, it’s certainly plausible.

Corey Frye,  the group’s lead singer, was one of the last members to join the band in February 2010.  He had been in Straight No Chaser  for five years and was a member of a band called Soul Review,  which at different times held Robinson, Silverstein and Gingrich as members as well, making it the main common ground between the current lineup.

“I was just kind of hopping on the mic for people at Sports at the time, and after a show, Smiley approached me and said ‘Hey, we should jam sometime,’ and we eventually made it happen and obviously it worked out,” Frye said.

Frye said that his time with Straight No Chaser helped him not only realize what he wanted to do, but also learn a lot of the non-musical aspects of being in a band, things he still utilizes with the Squeeze today.

“It puts you in a situation where you need to be ready to go and put on a good show,” he said. “I learned a lot about the professionalism of doing it right.”

Whatever the group is doing, something has been working for it this summer. The early summer shows at the Bluebird  were drawing crowds of between 500 and 700, earning the group a trip to Summer Camp music festival in May.  Last month, the group played in New York City for the first time.

“We had about 200 or 250 people there, mostly people that Max and I knew or IU grads, but still, it was pretty cool in a city like that to have that many people at a show,” Silverstein said.

Now comes the hard part. Frye said the group is trying to take its shows outside of Bloomington  to garner some regional, and hopefully, eventually national, recognition for the band.

“We want to take this thing as far as we can go,” he said.

Currently, the group is in the studio laying down three new tracks, a couple of which it hopes will be ready for the return of students in the fall.

“We try to be the best of what everyone wants to hear,” Frye said. “We’re really trying to write, make some original tunes for everyone. Now that we’re playing a lot, we’re just now truly discovering our sound.”


Want more Main Squeeze?

The group will be playing another show at the Bluebird July 23.

The first album, “First Drops”  is available for a full, free download on the band’s website, where you can also see the group’s first music video, which was released in May.