The Main Squeeze Bloomington's best band

Sometime in the past 12 months, the Main Squeeze went from being a local band known for covering an eclectic range of classics by Stevie Wonder, the Allman Brothers Band and Jay-Z to being a Bloomington household name, the new unofficial face of the Bluebird Nightclub and a band earning national attention with its dazzling technical chops and live energy.

But its meteoric rise didn’t happen without its fair share of obstacles. Early in its career, the Main Squeeze had to overcome being pigeonholed as a cover band and endured multiple lineup changes.

“We had humble beginnings, but we had big hopes and big dreams,” guitarist Max Newman said, having just returned home from a successful Thanksgiving show at Sullivan Hall in New York City. “And we still have even way bigger dreams to be the top act in the nation.”

They came a few steps closer to that goal this year and can now call themselves the top act in Bloomington. For the Best Local Band award, they impressively beat out a sizeable field of other local groups with more original material that included last year’s winner, Hotfox.

Newman attributes the blowup to his band’s perseverance and gradually increasing ratio of originals to covers.

“I think it’s 60/40 these days in favor of originals, and that ratio’s gonna keep getting bigger,” Newman said. “But I think that there’s something to be said when you’re playing in a college town. You want a good balance. You want to give people what they want to hear. And so I think we’ll continue to do covers, and we’re just gonna try to get more creative with what covers we bring out.”

The band’s 2011 accomplishments have included opening for alternative group State Radio, drawing massive crowds during the Little 500 and Halloween/Homecoming weekends and playing at Illinois’ Summer Camp Music Festival. This time next year, they hope the list will include sets at South by Southwest, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, All Good or any other major festival that will have them — as well as their first full-length album.

Despite his band’s relentless pursuit of bigger stages, Newman still insists the Main Squeeze could not have launched itself on its own.

“We would definitely like to thank our fans in Bloomington,” he said. “It really blew me away how many people over the past couple years have really gotten into the Squeeze and know the songs and still come out and support us, and we really love them, and we really, really thank them.”