Sybil Vane Holds Crowd With Hot Sound, Looks

Sybil Vane band members are: April Devereaux, vocals Dave Hillis, guitars Darren Jones, bass Joey Veneziani, drums

Never mind that the band played in near darkness. Never mind that they were crammed together on the tiny stage. Never mind that rain gushed down on Pioneer Square in buckets and only die-hards were venturing out for a beer.

When Sybil Vane took the stage at the Colour Box last Friday night, every person at the bar was more interested in the band than the beer. More to the point, every pair of eyes was riveted on the shifting figure of April Devereaux.

"We're a little worried that the music won't appeal to guys because it isn't heavy or metal," said Sybil Vane's guitarist, Dave Hillis. "Guys like that sound. We're a lot more melodic."

No worries.

If the throaty, passionate call of Devereaux's voice didn't catch the attention of the mostly male audience that night, the way she moved with her music certainly did.

"The lyrics I write come from my past and personal experience," she said. "It's almost therapeutic - a way of getting out past problems in my life."

Listening to Devereaux's voice and watching her move on stage makes it easy to lose sight of the three other people who make Sybil Vane sing. But it was Hillis who got the band together, and Darren Jones and Joey Veneziani who helped make it click.

Hillis had been in another band, Mace, but had given it up to be an assistant sound engineer. Jones had played in other bands and spent several years working in the health-care field when he met Hillis. And Veneziani was just hanging out at London Bridge recording studios jamming with different groups and waiting for something else to happen.

It did.

Hillis and Devereaux met at a party where Hillis heard her sing for the first time. They started writing a couple of songs, recorded a demo tape in Hillis's apartment and handed the tape out to a few people at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. The calls came in almost immediately.

Now, a year and a half later, Sybil Vane has released their first album - a seven inch - with two singles, "Swallow" and "12." They've opened for Sky Cries Mary and Candlebox, and hope to have a full length CD out next winter.

The band is named after Sibyl Vane, a tragic character in Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Dorian convinced Sibyl, an actress, to fall in love with him. When she finally did, she lost her ability to act and Dorian lost interest. When he rejected her, Sibyl committed suicide.

"I liked the name Sibyl Vane (with the American spelling, Sybil), so I bounced it off April, and she liked it too," Hillis said. "She was an interesting character and seems to represent our music in a lot of ways: lush in sound and texture, and a little tragic."

Their first CD, aptly named "The Finest Tragedy", is due for a winter release and also draws from the story of Dorian Gray. (After Sibyl commits suicide, Dorian calls it "the finest tragedy.")

With a sound reminiscent of Sky Cries Mary and echoes of This Mortal Coil, Sybil Vane's music is driven, melodic and forceful.

"When we recorded the album, our whole goal was to cut songs that can have complex lines and sounds in the studio but that can also be cut down for live performances and still sound like the same song," Hillis said. "The construction of our songs are the same when we play live, but the nuances are different and the solos are never the same."

Where to hear the band: Sybil Vane will play KISW radio's `Pain in the Grass' at the Seattle Center tonight at 6. and will be interviewed on KCMU radio (90.3 FM) live Saturday night at 8 p.m.