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Aug 16, 2023

Staunton's Four Thirty Four honing a solid framework for musical success

Batteau cruising along James River, Youngkin encouraging early voting Four Thirty Four officially calls Staunton home, but the hard rock band’s members cover a lot of ground. Vocalist Mike Vernon is

Batteau cruising along James River, Youngkin encouraging early voting

Four Thirty Four officially calls Staunton home, but the hard rock band’s members cover a lot of ground.

Vocalist Mike Vernon is based in Crozet. Greg Baker, the band’s drummer, calls Staunton home. Bassist Craig Coyner is from Waynesboro. Guitarist Scott Jordan lives in Louisa and travels more than an hour to join his bandmates for rehearsals.

Making time for each other and the original music they love sharing with listeners takes some extra effort, especially when live shows take them everywhere from Pennsylvania to Missouri. Camaraderie on the way to shows helps keep band members’ bonds tight.

“We love what we call ‘truck time,’” Jordan said. “We carry on and laugh and cut up, and talk some business. That’s our hang-out time.”

He said that when the band’s rapport is strong, fans pick up on the positive energy.

“We have a good time around each other, and I think that rubs off on others,” Jordan said. “It builds up like a dynamic relationship.”

Maintaining strong teamwork has helped the band weather challenges. “As soon as we played our first show, COVID hit right after that,” Jordan said. He said the musicians were determined to start performing live shows in safe conditions as soon as circumstances allowed, doing their best to avoid livestreams.

“We just came out and kind of became a rolling stone,” Jordan said. “We’re going on four years with the original lineup. All of us have been in bands all our lives, so we know how to get along. There a lot of give and take, and respect, and understanding.”

Focusing on straight-ahead rock — an approach the band calls “no fads, no gimmicks,” Jordan said — fuels forward motion.

Four Thirty Four's latest single, "High Roller," reached No. 41 on the SMR Top 50 in late June and rose to No. 37 last week. The Virginia-based hard rock band includes Greg Baker, from left, on drums, Scott Jordan on guitar, Craig Coyner on bass and Mike Vernon on vocals.

“We’re playing music we feel like we’ve been playing all our lives,” he said. “This is our life. You don’t let any type of genre dictate your writing. We always went against the grain. It was always us against the world.”

Four Thirty Four is busy building a national audience with its single “High Roller,” which reached No. 37 on the SMR Top 50 chart last week. Since the single was released to radio May 30, it has checked off several milestones already, becoming the No. 1 single added to radio stations in secondary markets and the top single added to Mediabase, a music industry service that monitor radio station airplay.

Jordan said the band will be releasing a new single later this year, “and after that, we’ll be prepared to go in and prepare some more singles.”

“There’s no point in putting out multiple songs anymore,” Jordan said, pointing to data showing that many individual streams of a given song are less than 1 minute long. “That’s what social media has done to people’s attention spans.”

In a world in which many competing demands battle for listeners’ attention, Four Thirty Four stays faithful to a trademark sound that invites music fans to linger a bit longer and get caught up in a full song.

“If you’re a TikTok fan, those are 15-second videos,” Jordan said. “People are being pulled to that. They’ll listen for a minute and then click on to the next tune.

“You click on one of our songs, and you’re going to know that’s us. You’ll know that’s Mike when you hear the vocals. You’ll know that’s Scott on the guitar.”

Maintaining consistently high musical quality is a goal that keeps the musicians reaching for more, regardless of the formats in which fans find them.

“It makes the hill a lot steeper,” Jordan said. “But it’s worth the climb.”

Four Thirty Four’s next show will be at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 5 at Tempest Bar & Lounge in Staunton. The bill will include Heemeyer, Krode and Orenda; tickets for the all-ages event are $10.

Jane Dunlap Sathe

(434) 978-7249

[email protected]

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Batteau cruising along James River, Youngkin encouraging early voting