HIGH SCHOOL GYM classes across North America are responsible for sharpening the musical tastes of hundreds of bands.Take Kevin Doria, for example. He makes up one-third of Growing, a band that has traveled the long road from propulsive drone rockers in Olympia to blissed-out experimentalists in New York.

 

“I ended up meeting these punk kids through physical education,” he explains. “The dudes who didn’t want to run, we just kept talking. I was really into metal and they thought that was lame, so I’d ask them, ‘What have you got? Give me a tape.’You’d get everything from Pennywise and Guttermouth to the Grabbers, but also mixed up with Fugazi and Minor Threat and all this other stuff that was smart and intellectual and really good.”

Doria’s bandmate, Joe DeNardo, had a different set of formative influences. “I really got into classic rock when I was in fifth and sixth grade,” he reflects. “Led Zeppelin,The Steve Miller Band… It’s the one thing that’s always stayed with me. It never gets old.”

Those disparate reference points are pulled together in Growing’s collection of taut instrumental grooves, which are warped and distorted by banks of effects pedals.The music may be punk in spirit, but the most recent incarnation of the group specializes in drifty ambient psychedelia played at oppressive volume.

Its current status as a penniless threesome has been key in helping Growing to function. “Everything that’s been really great that’s been made in music has come from a lack. From not having,” says DeNardo. Doria ties this in with their collective fascination for Led Zeppelin. “You take a record like Houses of the Holy,” he explains. “It’s this really epic idea and this really beautiful music, but those dudes probably started from a spot where they reacted more to their instinct than their technical ability.”

Doria and DeNardo added I.U.D./Extreme Violence member Sadie Laska at the end of 2008, which helped give them a much-needed new lease on life. “We reached this point where we were getting redundant with each other,” recalls Doria. “It was just point, counterpoint. But after the first practice [with Laska] it was really clear. It wasn’t even like everything was working out well. It was pretty sloppy, but the vibe was right. So we said: ‘We’re going on this tour in two weeks, why don’t you come? We’ll just hash out these jams.’” This ad-hoc way of working has served Growing well over the years, more by necessity than invention—the band no longer has a practice space, and is piecing together a new album over an extended period. 2009 will be the first year in its existence that a new Growing record hasn’t been released. “I don’t know if you heard, but the whole financial world collapsed, and we’re at the assend of that,” laughs Doria. “I can’t imagine having Growing being our livelihood,” adds DeNardo. “It’s beyond our wildest dreams.”

When pushed to explain how they supplement the band, DeNardo says he works as a dishwasher and occasional carpenter, while Doria plies his trade as a barman at Max Fish and the Lit Lounge. Laska is involved in the gallery scene. “It’s a straight struggle,” Doria says. “I’ve crashed out at Sadie’s spot before, and people will be knocking on the door at 8 a.m. to get money.” DeNardo continues: “Admittedly, it is something that we’ve brought on ourselves.This is the life we want. We want to be working on music. At the same time, we don’t really have a choice, because we’re not going to have day job careers.”

Thankfully, when things hit rock bottom for the band, a moment of salvation occurred. A disastrous tour of England in 2003, where it melted borrowed amps, played to dwindling crowds and battled to navigate the country, led to a connection with current tourmates, Fuck Buttons.

“We played this wickedly unpopulated show in Bristol,” Doria recalls. “There were three people there. One of the dudes was Ben from Fuck Buttons. He saw that, and for whatever reason, he mentioned it in an interview as this really inspiring moment. And I read it, and I contacted him.” The last date on the two bands’ joint tour is at Market Hotel Nov. 27, and despite all of their struggles, the members of Growing have no intention of leaving the city. “It’s a beautiful place,” Doria enthuses. “There’s an energy I feel here that I don’t feel anywhere else.”

> Growing

Nov. 27, Market Hotel, 1142 Myrtle Ave. (at Broadway), Brooklyn, no phone; 8, $TBA