The first Exit Angles songs were born out of those home recording sessions and eventually evolved into a live unit with a solid four-person core — progressing independently and not confined to any one style.
Exit Angles will be performing Jan. 16 at Yellow Cab Tavern alongside Just A Fire, Place Position, Isolation Drills and Oh Condor. Tickets are $10.
Originally from Morgantown, W. Va., Demko has been a part of the DIY punk scene for decades. (For old-school Dayton punks, Demko’s first band opened for The Obvious in Morgantown in 1989.) The punk ethos is still at the core of his work. Exit Angles can be sandwiched between sludgy stoner metal and poppy indie rock without question, a reflection of the group’s eclectic sound.
Exit Angles is made up of bassist, trumpeter and vocalist Ella Jennings; guitarist Isa Hufton; drummer Jonah Henthorne; and Demko. The band maintains the energy of punk, yet it grooves. The music also leans toward spaciousness rather than walls of distortion.
Musically, Demko pulls from a lot of reggae, bebop and cool jazz.
“Miles Davis talked about how it’s the space in between the notes that’s just as important,” Demko said. “That always intrigued me. I started experimenting with that many decades ago, leaving space, building things that way. Let it breathe a little bit.”
Though rooted in a jazz mindset, the reggae influence seems more predominant in the music itself, where the parts are written rhythmically and polyrhythmically. No single instrument carries a complete idea on its own. Every musician plays off one another.
“We want it to have power, so you need a certain amount of volume and intensity to feel that power,” Demko said. “But leaving some space keeps the listener from fatigue. We want our music to sound pleasant, to a degree.”
Demko’s been performing since age 14. The Morgantown punk scene was formative, with hardcore aesthetics and energy still perceptible in his current work. He said his earlier output was an attempt to reach ideas he is only now fully realizing.
The emphasis on negative space in Exit Angles’ music is further reinforced by Demko’s touring work with Explosions in the Sky, a band known for cathartic mini-symphonies and narrative instrumentals.
“There are minutes where I’m not playing anything,” he said. “It gives you time to really be listening to everything else. It reemphasizes those ideas, letting every instrument have its space and letting them connect. You have to be present the whole time to stay with it.”
In 2023, Exit Angles released its first LP, “A Sickness and a Fire,” on Blind Rage Records. The band’s second show took place at Blind Rage when the store was located in Belmont.
“For me, Dayton is probably the most important city in my whole musical life,” Demko said. “All the connections we made meeting people in Dayton really set up everything. It was a stepping stone in the art of DIY and putting that into practice. That DIY scene just never let up.”
Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: Exit Angles/Just A Fire/Place Position/Isolation Drills/Oh Condor
When: 7 p.m. Jan. 16
Where: Yellow Cab Tavern, 700 E. 4th St., Dayton
Cost: $10
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