“Our band name derives from a historical mystery about stones originating in Tibet,” said the members of local Orlando band The Dropa Stone. “The story deals with ancient stones that were discovered deep in caves in Tibetan mountains and each was carved with hieroglyphics. They depict a race of people otherwise unknown to us and show the landing of an ancient flying vehicle speculated to be from another world thousands of years ago and the people in the area were referred to as the ‘Dropas.’”
The Dropa Stone is Jon Meyers (vocals/guitar), Justin Henry (lead guitar), Will Richey (bass), and Joe Lederman (drums). “We are all very diverse musicians and always look to include this versatility in our music. Our playing style is Rock based with flashes of Rhythm and Blues, Funk and Reggae. Our upcoming studio album is more about the songs and conceptual flow of the CD. While our live shows tend to be very improvisational and jam oriented. We strive to have a lot of spontaneity in our sets, from the set list we choose to parts in the music where we just let it go and jam! This keeps things exciting for our fans and challenges us to be better players.”
The Orlando band doesn’t view onstage mistakes as a drawback in their live performance, but rather as an opportunity to take their music to a new level. “That’s always a funny situation for us because of the improvisational feel of our live shows. We encourage each other to take chances. We’d rather make a mistake by trying something new and exciting than just always playing it safe. If not, then go listen to the record really loud in your car! Many of our songs are written based on happy accidents. Embrace it! Many of the great musicians and bands we look up to were particularly great at turning mistakes into gold, such as Jimi Hendrix. He was brilliant at doing that. Sometimes when improvisation is involved, you can fall flat on your face or pass with flying colors, but we all enjoy taking those chances live.”
“The good thing about this band is each member has a very strong passion and work ethic. It amazes me sometimes how much we all enjoy improving and working on our craft. I think we all strive to become better musicians with each show and are always looking at ways to evolve and grow.”
The band’s creative approach to their music is their edge. “I think you are always going to get our very best and it is going to be real and honest. Creating and performing music is what we love to do and I think that is apparent when you come to see The Dropa Stone live. There is always an element of ‘what’s going to happen next’ at our shows and we enjoy living on that edge. As mentioned earlier, our sound is very versatile, one minute we might be playing a heavier-edgier Rock song, then we go into ‘Jam band’ mode the next, then well play some Blues. Every show we play is recorded. We then take the audio and throw it up on our live Bandcamp site. You’ll never hear a Dropa song played the same way twice, so it’s important for us to give listeners a medium to follow our live evolution.”
“We hope people can be reached with our music and taken to another place. I think ultimately making that connection with someone through your music is the ultimate.”
The members of The Dropa Stone admire several different well-known musicians for reasons that go beyond the music. “So many to choose from and hard to single out a few: Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Jimmy Page, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, John Paul Jones, Roger Waters. These are the revolutionaries. The artists that already had enough success to last a life time, yet still continued to push the musical, political, or philosophical envelope.”
“Orlando has an interesting music scene that’s hard to catalog. There are a lot of different styles and fusions going on at any given time. We’ve seen amazing bands that we leave the venue with our jaws on the floor and we’ve seen terrible bands that just make us shake our heads. The cool thing is that there are places to play to showcase what ever IT is. That’s not something that can be said for everywhere. No matter what it is, it all inspires us to play better and harder each time because we know there’s someone who could be thinking either one or the other about us.”
“We’ve been fortunate enough to have a tight knit of local bands that we feel we have some camaraderie with. It makes playing shows together easy going and drama free. If anything, we find we want to play better and harder for our friends since we know we have to work extra hard to impress them. That being said, there’s also something to continuing to play without your friends and always branching out and networking as much as you can. Music is NOT competitive, it’s subjective. On that note, can we outlaw Battle of the Bands while we’re at it?”
“We have recently completed our new studio album, Starry Messenger. We worked with Justin Beckler on the album, who is just an awesome producer and great to work with. We are very proud of the record and are excited to get it out there and perform as much as possible. We are aiming to have a CD release in February of 2012 and use it as the vehicle to do various touring, promotion and visit several new places we have yet to perform at.”
While waiting for the new CD, music fans can check out The Dropa Stone’s music on their regular Bandcamp page, and their live music on their other Bandcamp page. Keep updated with the local Orlando band on their official site, Facebook page, You Tube channel, and Twitter feed.
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