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Indie Outing: Bear In Heaven

Indie-Jam Connection: Perpetual Groove formed in the late 90s at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. The band’s original lineup—which included guitarist Brock Butler, bassist Adam Perry, drummer Joe Stickney and keyboardist Bret Hinton—is featured on the group’s long out of print self-titled debut album. Though Butler and Perry continue to perform as Perpetual Groove to this day, Hinton and Stickney left the band after college. A few years later, Stickney started playing a different type of psychedelic music in Brooklyn-based indie group Bear in Heaven.

Notable Indie Jam Moments: Though most of Perpetual Groove’s story takes place after Stickney left the group, the drummer does play on the group’s 1999 debut album. Perpetual Groove’s current lineup performed the album in its entirety this past May at its annual Amberland festival.

Lot Talk: Perpetual Groove started when Adam and I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design. It was my second day there, his first,—and we just started chatting. We were both into a wide spectrum of music, like Clutch and other bands. Clutch is a band that isn’t real hippie but at the same time they jam out. It’s kind of bizarre. We actually jammed our first night there. He brought all his stuff with him and I had all of mine in the dorm rooms. I imagine my roommate’s parents got pretty scared. It was probably the fourth or fifth trip up before I actually brought any actual art tools [laughs]. At the time, we also played with a kid named Joe Stickney who was our original drummer before we took the band on the road. While we were still in school he had his drum kit in the room just below me. Lucky enough, we got along and started playing music for free at coffee houses,” Brock Butler, Jambands.com