Some bands tour for years before they’re discovered, while other bands, such as Panic! At the Disco and, now, The Hush Sound, get record deals after only being a band for a few months.

The Hush Sound, a piano-rock band in the vein of Ben Folds Five mixed with Straylight Run, was formed in a suburb outside of Chicago by lead singers Bob Morris and Greta Salpeter.

“Bob and I have been friends for five or six years, and we’d just write music for fun,” Salpeter said. “We’d write quiet acoustic guitar and piano music, which is where the name ‘The Hush’ came from.”

To avoid confusion with a rapper of the same name, the band changed their name from The Hush to The Hush Sound. Gathering inspiration from Ben Folds Five and Billie Holiday, Salpeter said she and Morris felt their acoustic songs needed more of a rock ‘n’ roll feel to them and added Darren Wilson on drums and Chris Faller on bass.

Before signing to popular punk label Fueled by Ramen, which also is home to Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco, Salpeter said there were no long-term plans for the band.

“We didn’t have any intentions on getting signed,” she said. “It was more like, ‘Hey! Let’s get together and write music we like, not necessarily what’s popular.'”

The band wrote and recorded its first album, So Sudden – a play on the fact that things were going so fast for the band – in early 2005. The album was released in October 2005.

“We were all just kind of like ‘What the hell is going on?'” she said. “At first, we weren’t confident in ourselves; we didn’t realize (the record label) was going to be so big.”

Unlike other bands on the Fueled by Ramen label who tend to throw all of their problems at women and, at times, degrade them (just view song titles such as Fall Out Boy’s “I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth”), Salpeter said The Hush Sound is nothing like that.

“We don’t really listen to any music that downplays the role of women. We would never (sing about) that,” she said.

The band began touring by opening sold-out shows for the All-American Rejects and Panic! At The Disco, which Salpeter said was a great experience.

As the band tours throughout the East Coast in support of its latest album, Like Vines, and single, “Wine Red,” Salpeter said the members continue to grow as a band.

“Playing a show a day is like playing a basketball game every day, the more you play, the better you get, and you get to do a lot of things you wouldn’t do during practice,” she said.

Salpeter also said she’s been enjoying playing smaller clubs as opposed to the huge venues they played during the summer.

“We prefer a small venues and an enthusiastic crowd. A small club’s sound is way betterÿ- but we still want to play for as many people as possible.”

Contact ALL editor Andrew Gaug at [email protected].