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Music

Meet the Band: Hey There, Battleship

A look at a band with local ties.

By JULIE GARISTO
Published November 23, 2006

THE BAND: Bryan Leighty, bass; Aaron Raymo, guitar and vocals; and Mike Lopez, drums. They formed last year in St. Petersburg and incorporate backgrounds of hard and modern art rock into a balanced, dynamic sound.

THE HOOKUP: Raymo and Leighty met in 2004 and found Lopez a year later through an online classified ad.

DAYTIME LIVES: Lopez's family owns the Carmelita's restaurant chain, and he manages the Park Street location in St. Petersburg. Leighty is a network implementation engineer for a credit card company or a "cubicle-dwelling geek," he says. Raymo works for a human resources company. Raymo and Lopez are married, and Lopez has two children, Lily, 5, and Julian, 3.

INFLUENCES: "I grew up listening to Devo and the Ramones," Leighty says. Lopez: "I love old-school rap. I love punk rock, AC/DC. ... Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers, Wilco. ... I'm more all over the place." Raymo: "Me, I love the three-pieces, the Police, Nirvana, Primus. I also love the Kinks, and the Flaming Lips, to me, the greatest American band of all time."

THE WAY THEY WORK: "I'm the type of person who can play a riff over and over 50 times that I like," Raymo says. "I think that Bryan is the best at telling me we played a measure too many times. So, I'm kind of like the writer and Bryan's kind of like the arranger."

THREE IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: "When you're in a three-piece, it's a balancing act. You don't have two or three guitars a lot louder and the drums and bass off in the background," Leighty says. "In a three-piece, each part is going to be very distinct and heard."

Raymo: "When you're in a three-piece, too, you can't mask what is there. ... It's about melody and space, and you have to keep it raw and keep that punk rock element or else it gets cheesy."

THEIR FAVORITE DELUGE: "Our song Love Flood I compare to Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire," Raymo says. "It's kind of a complement to that, where love is so powerful that you drown in it."

CHECK 'EM OUT: Sunday at a benefit for the homeless at Skipper's Smokehouse, 910 Skipper Road, Tampa. $10. The event begins at 2 p.m.; the band is scheduled to appear at 8:20 p.m. (813) 971-0666. www.myspace.com/heytherebattleship.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 11:11:52]