Ironweed

Albany, NY's Ironweed took shape in 2007 when Mike Vitali on guitar, Brendan Slater on bass, and Jim Feck on drums—veterans of the long-running local outfit Greatdayforup—joined forces with other area musicians. The band name paid tribute both to William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in their hometown and to the players' fondness for weighty guitar tones and pungent skunkweed. Jeff Andrews, previously fronting Held Under, came aboard as lead singer, while Endicott's Ryan Rapp joined on second guitar. Drawing on their combined background in stoner rock and heavy metal, the quintet quickly attracted attention beyond upstate New York, reaching Small Stone Records in Detroit, which offered the band a deal. Work began at once on the debut album Indian Ladder, titled after a local nature preserve, and the record appeared in fall 2008.