Now a trio, Leaving Springfield finds strength in numbers

Two’s company, and three’s a crowd. That’s what we’ve always been told, right?

If you would’ve posed this proposition to the guys from Leaving Springfield, even as recently as six months ago, both of them would’ve willfully cosigned such a sentiment. For almost a decade, drummer Matt Norcross and singer-guitarist Brent Kessler stubbornly resisted the idea of adding another member.

Having played together previously in another act, the duo developed a distinctive chemistry and saw no need to expand the ranks. So the pair purposefully performed as a two-piece, with Kessler finding creative ways to bring out the bottom end in band’s music, to compensate for the fact that the lineup lacked a bassist. “For the longest time, we didn’t even talk about a bass player,” Norcross explains. “We were like, ‘To hell with it. We don’t need one.’”

Famous last words, as they say. That whole notion went right out the window when Jim Campbell joined the act just after the first of the year. When his band, the Solid Suns, split last year, Norcross and Kessler wasted no time reaching out. After some deliberation, the two had finally decided they wanted to add another member to help augment their sound, and they were sure somebody else would snap him up if they didn’t reach out. Campbell seemed perfect. He met the one essential requirement.

“We wanted someone that we knew, someone that we would connect with instantly,” Kessler recalls. “Somebody that we would hang out, and oh, by the way, yeah, we’re also playing in a band together. At some point, you’re still kind of a band of brothers. If you’re three separate corporate entities just getting together to play music, it’s no fun at all.”

Luckily, Campbell — who progressed as a player performing in church bands before becoming a member of the Solid Suns — was on exactly the same page. “We’re friends, and I’ve always said this, too: I want to make music with people I like,” declares Campbell. “I don’t have any interest in being in a band with guys I can’t stand. When that’s on point and you’re actually friends, it’s fertile ground to make music.”

“It’s cool to hang out with a couple guys who are just happy to be playing music,” adds the bassist, who does security at the Cannery and has lived in Vegas for more than half of his life. “You know? Not a lot of drama. Just a lot of laughing. This is, like Matt always says, this is our bowling league. I mean, even though we take it pretty seriously, but at the same time, it’s not what’s paying our bills. You know, so, I mean, if it’s not going to be fun, then what’s the point? We’re not making any money, so it’s got to at least be fun.”

No problems there, from the sounds of it. All three guys say they’re overjoyed with the new arrangement. Having Campbell on board has really opened things up for Kessler and Norcross. Besides the fact that the former no longer has to haul around all that extra gear, Campbell’s presence has allowed the two of them to expound upon and retool what they were doing before, resulting in a more nuanced sound, from adding leads, solos and other flourishes to delving into different dynamics on the drums with accents and more space.

When the Solid Suns shared bills with Leaving Springfield, Campbell saw more that could be done with their music even before he was asked to become a member. “The first time I saw Leaving Springfield,” Campbell recalls, “I thought, ‘Wow, they’re really great … but they could really use a bass player.’

“Because of the situation they were in — and I mean, they did it well, but at the same time, as a guitar player, he had kind of had to paint himself into a corner,” Campbell continues. “Because he couldn’t stop doing what he was doing, otherwise, the whole thing fell apart. That’s one of the things I’m really the most happy about: I feel like people are getting to see what a great guitar player BK is, because now, he actually gets to be a guitar player.”

“I feel like I’ve gone from the big, fat, eight-pack of crayons — you know, made for preschool children — at least up to the 24-pack,” Kessler confirms with a laugh. “I’m not up to the 64-pack with sharpener yet. I won’t go that far.”

“I was doing a lot more on drums to try to take up more space,” says Norcross, explaining how having Campbell has allowed him to find a fresh perspective. “Once Jim came in, he was kind of like, ‘Hey, buddy, I got this. Just sit back, man.’ And I did. Once I laid back, it opened the song up so much more to me, to where it didn’t feel like I was overcompensating to make up for the fact that there was only two of us.”

Call it a natural reflex. When there are just two people to do the heavy lifting, you learn to adapt, to give the other guy a hand. Norcross and Kessler know all too well about lending a hand to carry a load. Both seasoned stage hands, the pair have been friends since the early part of the past decade, having first crossed paths at The Orleans and later at the MGM.

Besides the fact that they each earn a living doing the same line of work, and they’re obviously an ideal match when it comes to making music, there’s another reason they were perfectly paired. Leaving Springfield, the band’s moniker, is an allusion to the original origin of Norcross and Kessler. Originally hailing from the heartland, the two transplants came to Vegas from the same part of the country, Norcross from a small town in Missouri and Kessler from Wichita, Kansas.

Kessler was the first to arrive in the mid ’90s. After spending almost a half-decade as a struggling musician on the Sunset Strip in mid- to late-’80s, Kessler moved back to the Midwest for a handful of years, before moving to Vegas. He came out here to help open The Orleans, and it’s the best thing he ever did. “It absolutely was life changing,” Kessler says of his friend convincing him to come out to Vegas. “There is nothing I have today that I can’t point to him getting me the gig out here.”

It was a few years before he and Norcross — who moved out to Las Vegas directly after finishing school at Full Sail in Orlando, where he studied audio engineering — started playing together. Kessler laid low for a few years when he first came to town, immersing himself in his work before eventually picking the guitar back up.

Norcross, meanwhile, came out swinging, so to speak, keeping time for one of the biggest bands to ever break out of Las Vegas (a trivial tidbit you won’t find on Leaving Springfield’s bio and which I won’t spoil by spelling out here — it’s easily searchable, if you’re so inclined). While that seems like the kind of thing you don’t keep to yourself, particularly if you’re pursuing a career in music, Norcross and Kessler agreed early on to just leave that part out of their story.

“Once BK and I started Leaving Springfield,” Norcross explains, “we both kind of just … and it wasn’t even really … it was a very short conversation of ‘Hey, man, I really don’t want to use this. We’re not sounding anything like that band, and so there’s really no reason, nor do I think it’s going to do us any good. B was like, ‘I agree 100 percent.’ And that was it.”

“I never had to put my foot down about it, but I was kind of, maybe in mind, trying to be protective of Matt,” adds Kessler. “I didn’t want that tagline, ‘formerly of’ to be hanging around his neck. That can be a burden. I didn’t want to be saddled with that, as well. I’d rather be judged harshly based on our own music, than have people come out to see us because of stuff I had no part of.”

Hats off to the guys. A lot of folks would seize on such an opportunity to steal their share of the spotlight. When you see just how hard these guys have worked to make a name for themselves in the past 10 years, putting out three EPs and four full-lengths as Leaving Springfield (due Wednesday at House of Blues with Led Zepagain), it’s easy to see why they’ve shied away from the idea of standing in anyone’s shadow. Fact is, they’ve done an absolutely fine job of casting a shadow of their own.

And with Campbell, that shadow just grew.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com/music. Contact him directly at dherrera@reviewjournal.com and follow @rjmusicdh on Twitter.