Conversations with 8-track Minds

Today we’d like to introduce you to 8-track Minds

Hi 8-Track, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We started as a duo — MacLachlan-Bower Overkill (Gordon MacLachlan and Greg Bower) — in 2011 playing soft ’70s songs as kind of a lark. We’d wear costumes and had a silly backstory made up. We were really playing off what the Wusses (triangle area Yacht Rock Band that plays a handful of shows yearly) have been doing for 20 years now. Eventually we became a trio when Gordon’s wife Sandie joined us. She was a professional Puerto Rican lounge singer when she lived in Los Angeles.

We added bass, drums and another guitar player and renamed the band 8-Track Minds, after the 8 Noble Truths of the 8-Track Mind — https://stason.org/TULARC/musical-instruments/8-track-tapes/4-What-is-8-track-mind.html

0) Understanding one’s fate leads to greater acceptance.
1) State of the art is in the eye of the beholder.
2) Society’s drive is on attaining rather than experiencing.
3) In less than optimum circumstances, creativity becomes all the more
important.
4) Progress is too often promises, promises, promises to get you to
buy, buy.
5) “New” and “improved” don’t necessarily mean the same thing.
6) “Naive” is not a dirty word.
7) In seeking perfection has the obvious been overlooked?
8) Innovation alone will not replace beauty.

(This philosophy isn’t something the band is actively engaged in. But it’s still pretty cool. And Greg Bower does own a turntable repair business — https://turntabledoc.com — so the luddite shoe fits, right?)

One of the guitar players was involved in other active cover bands and he emphasized that audiences would react positively to two things:
— Sandie’s presence and talent as a front-person
— danceable music from that era

So we changed our emphasis from ’70s soft rock to ’70s dance pop fronted by a dynamic female vocalist/dancer around 2015. And everywhere we played wanted to book us again. The band kicked into full gear around 2016 and our audiences have grown steadily since.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We had to replace members in 2017 and 2024, which is always a challenge when you have a tight-knit group where everyone has specific roles. But in both cases, the band became better after the change.

Covid was rough because we missed playing and we missed each other. Of course, that was kind of universal.

During the covid period, bandleader Greg Bower’s wife — Adele Hite, a huge fan of the band and a guiding light in terms of the setlist and the visual presentation — had stage 4 breast cancer. She was very sick during 2021 and died in April 2022 (the band played her memorial per her request).

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As the tag line says, NC’s best ’70s dance party band.

We won the WRAL Voter’s Choice Award for the best band in the Triangle in 2023.

What sets us apart from other bands is the energy level we bring to every performance. There are other bands that are better musicians than we are. But I don’t know that anyone puts on a better show. And it’s our collective energy that drives it.

It’s fun music. It’s happy music. It’s danceable music. It’s music that everybody knows thanks to popular culture, movies, and remakes. Many of the songs are quite challenging musically, so the instrumental and vocal arrangements are really important. And while we’re performing these challenging pieces, we wear gaudy costumes and bounce up and down like a bunch of goofy lunatics.

By now (2024), we’re really more like a family than a band. And some of that is in the literal sense — we have a married couple as well as a father and his son in the band. And two of the non-related members have been friends for 40 years. It’s rare to find a group of musicians that are so tightly knit. And that becomes obvious to people when they see us together, onstage and off.

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most is seeing the members of the audience get completely blissed out reacting to what we’re doing.

Life is hard and every day people struggle to get through their work week with all the burdens and distractions and frustrations that modern society presents to them. When you see those people get completely lost in the moment and dance all their cares away, it’s an immensely satisfying feeling to know that we helped them get there. It’s therapeutic for the audience and the performers. When it goes really well, it feels like magic.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://8trackmindsband.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/8trackminds
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/8TrackMinds8/
• Twitter: https://x.com/8_TrackMinds
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@8-TrackMinds