Remaining under the radar for over five years, members of the unsigned Bay Area rock band “Commonwealth,” continue to make music while devoting little effort toward self-promotion.

As of late September they released their fourth self-produced record “Commonwealth,” an EP consisting of six progressive tracks that they proudly distribute out of the back of their cars.

It seems the four-piece act has shown little defeat or care from their lack of commercial success.

“We’re coming up on the side,” said Ben Noble-Christoff, 23-year-old SF State cinema/music graduate who shares the position of lead guitarist and vocalist for the band with member Robert Slater. “It’s all about the music,” he said.

“We are not trying to market ourselves or make it commercial in any way.”

Without any immediate shows on tap and no real interest on the part of any major labels, bassist Luke Fretwell, 21, said he comes up to the Bay (from Santa Barbara where he is working on his English degree) on any weekend possible just to rehearse. “The only thing we get out of it is to play together,” he said.

He added that he has only recently come to understand how special Commonwealth is after discovering the lack of chemistry that members have had in other bands he’s played with.
Commonwealth share a strong bond, much influenced by past experiences.

The members first developed their sound while playing together in their high school jazz and marching bands in Benicia, which helped to mold them into educated, dedicated musicians and friends.

Coming into the punk/punk rock scene with such serious background experience is the driving force that separates Commonwealth from the standard garage band.

These guys not only improvise, they understand improvisation.

Without limiting their music to one genre, the band is most comfortable being compared to the kind of loud, two-guitar modern rock sound reminiscent of bands like Fugazi, Nirvana and the Pixies.

One woman who approached Commonwealth after a show last year gave them a title that stuck – post grunge, noise-influenced power pop.

“This ain’t no disco,” said Noble-Christoff, diminishing comparisons of the band with the dance-oriented hipster-punk dominating the current popular rock airwaves.

Commonwealth is certainly not a part of that scene - if they’re part of a scene at all.

The band members said they recognize that they have fallen out of the local circuit of shows due to their busy lives, working full time, girlfriends and an unforgiving music industry full of what Noble-Christoff called “flaky promoters and lovers of emo music.”

When live shows were more of a frequent affair, some of the spots they played included Blake’s in Berkeley, The Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, The Stork Club in Oakland and Saturn Café in Santa Cruz.

Lead vocalist and guitarist, Robert Slater, credits the strong backbone of the band to a feeling of unity, ever expanding friendship and deep musical communication.

All the members said they could change the direction of the song, just through playing notes, using hand gestures and making eye contact without ever losing the beat.

“We are a mutual admiration society,” said Slater.

Of course, the band would love to make their music a full-time gig and attain some state of recognition but they refuse to compromise their sound just to sell records. Slater said if their present status is as far as the band will go, no hearts will be broken and they will continue to be mates.

“One of us would have to die to end this band,” said Noble-Christoff confidently, a sentiment shared by the other members of the band who all agree that it would take something very dramatic to stop their musical mission.