Crossing Over: The Bridge

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BEFORE NOV. 22, 2006, The Bridge had never played a headlining show to more than 400 people in its Baltimore home base. So, when the band had an album release party at the 1,600 person-capacity Rams Head Live, mandolinist Kenny Liner had hoped 800 people would show up. As fans filtered in, the crowd rose to 1,000. Then, by the time the band took the stage, it had swelled to 1,200.

Liner was sick at the time, nursing a 100-degree fever. He doesn't remember seeing much — he was so sick he was hallucinating — he said, but he does remember one thing:

"I remember walking out on stage and almost fainting, I was so surprised," he said. "I was just like, 'Who are these people? How do they even know who we are?'"

Lead singer and guitarist Cris Jacobs remembered the experience a bit better.

"It felt good," he said. "Just to walk out on stage, after five years of doing it, and see that huge crowd was definitely gratifying. It's one of those moments that you just kind of be thankful for."

And these days, The Bridge is having a lot of those moments.

The jam band, which melds rock (Southern and otherwise), jazz, funk, Americana and even a little bit of hip-hop, might be poised for its biggest year yet. The group is playing more shows outside of the Mid-Atlantic than it has before — including some dates in Europe this summer — and it's finishing up its third album, which Jacobs said he hopes to have out by fall.

The base of The Bridge is the relationship between Liner and Jacobs, who have know each other since Jacobs was 11. The pair started playing music together in high school, when Liner would sometimes thump on bongos in a Grateful Dead cover band Jacobs was in.

Then, after Jacobs came back from college, the pair got serious. Almost seven years ago, Jacobs and Liner started playing open mic nights as a duo — acoustic guitar and acoustic mandolin. It was during those early gigs that Liner realized he could intertwine his secret talent — beat-boxing — into the duo's music.

"I actually beat-boxed then, just not in front of people," Liner said "I've always been beat-boxing, but back then I never would have thought to have done it in a live setting."

Liner said he realized he could accent the acoustic songs with a drum beat by beat-boxing, so they gave it a shot.

"It sounded good and I think we played a couple of open mic nights where the girls went crazy and I've never looked back," Liner said. "Girls love beat-boxing, so I just kept at it."

After changing bassists, saxophonists and drummers — including a year-and-a-half-long period where the band had a rotating cast of drummers — The Bridge finally settled on its current core in 2006: Liner and Jacobs plus Dave Markowitz on bass, Mike Gambone on drums and Patrick Rainey on sax.

Then, in 2007, the band signed with independent label Hyena Records, which re-released The Bridge's self-titled 2006 album. Now the group is finishing its first album for the label, one that Jacobs and Liner said is its most mature yet.

"I think we've matured and continue to carve out our songwriting style — not that we're there yet — but definitely it's just another snapshot of the band," Jacobs said.

"I think I'm learning how to be more honest as a songwriter and just ... writing songs that are more real and true to what I'd actually like to express as opposed to just doing something to do it," Liner said. "Plus, I just think in general, I'm trying harder to be a songwriter and a writer. It's just something you have to make yourself do — you can't just be it you have to make yourself be it."

Jacobs said the pressure of needing to make an album for a record label helped his creative process.

"We didn't necessarily have a ton of new material ready and then all of a sudden it was time to record a new album," he said. "We were going to be touring for the next year and we have this deal with Hyena, so it kind of forced me, especially; forced me to sit down and try to crank out six new tunes out of nowhere, which was great because now we have them and sometimes that's all you need — a sort of kick in the ass."

But the band also understands it needs to achieve a higher level of success to stay in the game.

"We hope to be able to keep doing what we're doing, but in order to do that in the long run you need to reach some level of success or else the numbers don't add up to be able to keep going," Jacobs said.

Could The Bridge span the gap from indie startup to success story? Hyena Records co-owner Kevin Calabro thinks so.

"The Bridge are on their way," he said. "By this time next year, I see them drawing upwards of 500 to 1,000 people a night in almost every major city in the U.S. I'd think the next album can sell upwards of 25,000 copies. They get to that point by hard work and consistency. Their shows are always killing and their next album will be even better than the last."

Baltimore promoter Tim Walther of Walther Productions, who has booked the band at his All Good Music Festival and Camp Out a record five years in a row — the fifth coming in July — even sees the band crossing over to genres outside the jam band scene.

"I think the band has a really great career ahead," he said. "They are in the jam scene, and I think they can really break out big in the jam scene, but they can also crossover into the Americana and pop scene."

And while The Bridge might be on the verge of something big with this next album, you wouldn't know it from talking to Jacobs and Liner.

"I think we're on the verge of playing better music — that's for sure — and that's more important," Liner said.

» Santa Fe Cafe, 4410 Knox Road, College Park; with Jaime McLean Band, Tue., 11 p.m., $10; 301-779-1345.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg

Photos courtesy Hyena Records