Album Title: “Taker Easy”
Release Date: July 21st, 2009
Record Label: Suburban Home Records

Devon – Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
John – Drums
Chad – Guitar
Ronnie – Guitar
Jerome – Bass
Mike – Pedal Steel

The Takers started with a series of phone calls on a Tuesday afternoon. You see, Devon was supposed to play a show the next night opening for Willie Heath Neal. Having played solo around town for a while but wanting to add more presence to his songs, Devon asked his roommate Chad to play electric guitar along with him. Chad thought it sounded great but wanted to round out the “band” a bit more, so they started calling all their friends that lived along their street (NW 4th Ave. for anyone familiar with Gainesville, notorious hangout for all manner of musicians, bohemians, artists, and loons). They easily roped in neighbor Ronnie Holmes (also of Whiskey & Co.) with the allure of free band beer at the show. Ronnie’s roommate Jerome had recently picked up the bass to jam with local party/thrash miscreants Savage Brewtality, so he signed on too for lack of well, anything better to do that night. After calling around to the surprisingly short list of Gainesville drummers the managed to con Jake Crown (Rehasher/Coffee Project) into joining on.

They hit the warehouse that night and rattled through a few covers and a few originals. The next night they nailed most of the songs, butchered a few, and generally had a blast. Perched at the bar, local jack-of-all-musical-trades Mike laughed quietly to himself. Enough fun was had to plow forward, so Devon and Chad kept working on songs in spare time at home. Jake decided to get serious about college, so fellow 4th Ave. resident John (drummer of Whiskey & Co.) was recruited to round out the ranks. Shortly thereafter, Mike moved to 4th Ave. and bought a pedal steel to start tinkering around with. After a couple weeks, he asked if they’d be interested in having him join up. He fit right in and the line-up was solidified.

That was two years ago. Since then, they’ve been hitting the local scene as hard as possible, playing at every venue in town and jamming for endless hours to hone their throwback honky-tonk into a finely tuned barn burning machine.