Among The Enemy, A Band Decades in the Making
Hailing from Clarksville, Tennessee, Among The Enemy has made leaps and bounds in just a small amount of time. It all started with a Facebook post, a call-out for like minded people who just wanted to make music. Right before Christmas of 2022 the first meet up happened of what would become Among The Enemy, after some changes to the lineup the final structure became Ricky Richter on drums, Nick ‘Ned’ Donnelly on bass and Heath Adrian on guitar and lead vocals. Even during the holidays, the trio still managed to practice, write and record music that would soon become their first EP.
A year ago though, these three friends had no idea each other existed. I spoke with the band about how they made differences into similarities and three dreams into one band. Each of the three members originally were pursuing music in different states before they each had made the decision to move out to the music capital.
Donnely is originally from upstate New York where he had a couple projects that he put effort into before moving to Clarksville. He started on acoustic guitar but he says he was always drawn to the bass “I played guitar for about 4 or 5 years, I started when I was 9 years old and then I always just wanted to play bass so bought a bass, so I’ve been playing stringed instruments for 25 years now.” Now playing as the bassists for Among The Enemy is where he has been the most content.
Adrian had a few other semi-popular projects before starting ATE, among those were Virginia Hearts, a co-collab project with Josh Reeder from Plastic Meteor Shower. He has a background in mixing, “I’m big on wanting things to sound old school, like they were recorded on analog tape, like we’re still in the seventies, eighties, nineties and we’re recording through old analog gear on tape. I’m big on capturing the old school feel with a new school sound.” Adrian has moved all around the state before he settled in with Donnely and Richter in this new creative space. “It’s not like previous bands that I’ve been in where I’m the soul writer, everyone has equal say.” "Every song you hear, it’s all of our DNA spliced together.”
Richter, like the other two grew up in a small farming type town where not a lot of others shared the same passion but he wanted to make dreams happen. At a young age seeing fellow students play a school band concert he became enthralled by the drums. He had found out later that the school band was going to be playing in Disneyland that year. This then became the dream that he would go on later to accomplish by the time he had hit 8th grade. Several projects later, Richter wanted to move closer to the music, he, his wife and son moved out to Clarksville after visiting family for the holidays. “2 years after working, I was like ‘there’s gotta be more’ I looked at a stage one night at dinner and I knew I needed to get back on stage, I was so tired of not living my own passion.” A few weeks later is when he found the post on Facebook calling out the search for like minded people and responded with “when’s practice?”.
With the amazing feat of putting together an EP only 5 months after their initial meeting, Among The Enemy released their first single on April 21st 2023. ‘In Your Mind’ can be heard now on all streaming platforms. "Every song you hear, it’s all of our DNA spliced together.” says Adrian, the three keep in contact everyday sending lyrics or samples. The bond that these three have created over the short amount of time has made up for the many years of attempts of getting their sound out there. The trio have created a sound that brought all of their passions together, from the pop-punk sound of Blink-182 to alternative sound of Red Hot Chili Peppers. No news on when their EP will drop but with the speed these guys work I’m expecting to hear about a drop date in the coming weeks.
You can catch Among The Enemy at the 404 Bar & Grill in Nashville on 5/4 and Bring It Back Games in Shelbyville on 6/3
‘In Your Mind’ is streaming now