When a young rock band looks ahead to the future, going platinum or winning a Grammy are often accomplishments the band hopes to achieve. Pop-rock band Damone hopes to one day get parodied by Weird Al Yankovic.

“Imitation is a sign of flattery,” says Noelle, the singer and guitarist for Damone, on the line from their tour van, passing through New Jersey. “If he’s heard of us, then that means a lot of other people have heard of us. Half of them can hate us, but the other half might like us.”

“Once Weird Al covers you, you’re pretty much huge,” says Vasquez, who plays bass and does vocals.

Damone will release their major label debut album, “From the Attic,” on May 5. They recorded the songs in a basement in Waltham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston where the members grew up.

“I kind of like to think that we fall into a nice little grey area between pop punk and garage bands,” says Vasquez.

Their manager sent their demo to a lawyer, who sent it out to record labels. They got two offers and eventually signed with RCA. The only thing that RCA changed was the mixing of the songs.

“I guess mixing’s important for making it sound good on the radio and I’m happy with the music,” says Vasquez.

For 17-year-old Noelle, being the only female in the band is not that big an issue. Even being much younger than the other members is not that big a challenge.

“They’re more immature so it’s not much to deal with. I get a lot of shit from them, but I give them just as much shit back,” she says. “And I’m as smelly as they are.”

Last month Dave Pino, the group’s guitarist and songwriter who also helped form Damone, left the band.

“He’s taken a little hiatus from the band. It could be permanent, it might not be,” says Vasquez. “We’re not really sure because we haven’t heard from him. This band’s kind of like a family. The door is open. If he doesn?t come back, we’re ok with that; that’s fine. We’ll just keep doing our thing and move on.”

They played as a 3-piece band for a while, but recently hired someone to fill in for Pino just on the road.

“We want to give people what the record sounds like so unless Noelle could grow 2 additional arms, you’ve got to have a fourth person to play some of the other parts,” says Vasquez.

“You trying to say I suck?” jokes Noelle.

“Well you don’t have four arms,” he responds. “If she did, that would be pretty cool. Maybe I can play guitar, and play bass with my foot.”

Damone will be touring with Sum 41 in Japan next week, and will play on the Warped Tour this summer. While on the road, they are constantly doing interviews, promoting the album, and playing shows, but they are using any down time to work on new material.

“We’re always writing down new ideas. Hopefully, we’re going to try to get a laptop for the van, so we can record on that and just have all our ideas down for the next record,” says Vasquez.

Their current tour with The Ataris takes them to Toronto’s Kool Haus Monday night. Because of fears related to the SARS, several artists have cancelled or postponed their visits to Toronto in recent weeks, including Billy Joel, Elton John, Kelly Clarkson, and Lisa Marie Presley. Vasquez says he is not worried about SARS.

“Things like SARS and War with Iraq, those are the kinds of reasons that we have to go play shows so people can forget about that for a while. It’s kind of our job.”

Vasquez is enjoying time on the road, describing it as being “like summer camp.” He wants the world to take notice of Damone, and to realize that they are just “regular people.”

“This could be you. Anybody could do what we’re doing. We are the under dogs.”






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