Bethesda combines indie rock and healing lyrics

Written by Nicole Aikens Wednesday, 02 March 2011 20:19

User Rating: / 20
PoorBest 

As the childhood rhyme goes, first comes love, then comes marriage — Bethesda is the proverbial baby in the baby carriage.

While Shanna Delaney and Eric Ling were at Kent State k-i-s-s-i-n-g, they started the band Silver Diamond Doves. The duo started attending Vineyard Community Church together, where a little over three years ago they met the three guys who would fill out their group.

One by one, Dan Corby, Jesse Sloan and Justin Rife joined Delaney and Ling on their musical endeavor. Corby and Sloan both currently attend Kent State as a visual communication design major and a pre-nursing major, respectively, and Rife left Kent State in 2009.

After Corby, Sloan and Rife completed the ensemble, they started having those “ah” moments, Ling said. The moments where they all just knew it was right.

But they didn’t have a new name.

Even as they were driving to their first show, they still hadn’t settled on what they would call themselves. Second Star to the Left was up in the air, but when Sloan’s dad called with a suggestion, they had another “ah” moment.

Bethesda is a city in Maryland, but that’s not the namesake of the band. Bethesda in Jewish tradition is a healing pool, and that, more than a city or a “Peter Pan” reference ever could, encompasses the messages in Bethesda’s songs.

“We talk a lot about struggles and difficult times,” said Ling, who graduated from Kent State with a degree in integrated social studies and is currently working toward his master’s in evaluation and measurement.

Their songs tend to be a little lengthier because they have to tell the stories through their lyrics.

“I think we always try to focus on the story or the emotion,” Rife said.

Bethesda just finished recording its newest EP, “Dreamtiger and Other Tails,” which they hope to release in May, and they said there’s only one song less than five minutes on that album.

“We’re a lyric-centered band,” Delaney said. “We couldn’t cut lyrics because it’s part of a story.” And Ling added, “It’s hard to write a three-minute story.”

Every member of Bethesda came from different musical backgrounds, so any one of the band’s songs might have a hint of a different style.

“People have often had a hard time defining (our music),” said Delaney, who graduated from Kent State with a degree in integrated language arts and is currently working on a master’s in literature.

There’s a healing quality to Bethesda’s songs, no matter what the influences are on any given track. The power behind Delaney’s lead vocals, both in sound and emotion, demonstrate her background in musical theater, but her dreamy tone carries the stories in the lyrics.

The overall product ends up being a little bit indie, a little bit pop and a little bit folk. Estee Beasley plays violin for the band, adding that unmistakable string sound.

Corby called Bethesda’s music “baroque pop” because every part the band writes for a song is orchestrated. Every piece of the song has meaning.

“We just write music, and however it comes out, it comes out,” Rife said.

Delaney said the most important part is if the band loves the song. If they love it, it’s a Bethesda song. They aren’t defined by one genre, rather a mixture of their favorite parts of a multitude of genres.

“(The songs) all seem to flow together,” Rife said. “It doesn’t seem like you’re listening to different artists.”

Ling and Sloan write the songs, but each member writes the part for his own instrument. Ling said it helps them come up with something unique each time and helps to eliminate redundancy.

“It changes the roles we play,” Sloan said because the person who is playing a specific instrument depends on who wrote the song.

During the their Silver Diamond Doves days, Ling and Delaney had a hard time writing music because Ling wasn’t used to writing songs for her voice.

“When we first started writing songs, it was miserable,” Ling said.

Now they’ve got things figured out, and the music is part of their marriage.

Bethesda has only been together for three years, but in that time the band has racked up some big accomplishments.

Ling used to put Azure Ray songs on love CDs for Delaney. Now they can say they opened for one of the same bands that brought them together. Delaney said she has always admired Eisley. Yeah, Bethesda has opened from them, too.

“You see how quickly things did work,” Delaney said.

“You only get one shot at this music thing, and we really feel confident with what we have,” Ling said.

First comes love, but in this case it’s not solely love between two people. It’s love for the group and love for the cause and love for the music being created. It’s love in the songs they write and the stories they tell.

There’s love in the circumstance because they know chances like these don’t always come around.

“Deep down in my heart, I feel like this is what God has for us,” Delaney said. “We’ve all been given this passion for a reason.”

Contact Nicole Aikens at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .