Local keyboardist Ross Bogan started playing different gigs around the city back when he was a freshman at College of Charleston, and he hasn’t stopped since. He toured for several years with multiple bands, while keeping up with local projects including experimental act Robotrio.
“Charleston has a deep creative well, and there’s a lot of amazing world class musicians that I’ve gotten to play with over the years,” he said.
In fall 2018, Bogan ended up playing an after-show for Umphrees McGee in a group pulled together by bassist Ryan Stasik — a group now known as synthwave band Doom Flamingo that has steadily built a presence in the local scene.
His newest project, Lureto, an instrumental outfit with guitarist Wallace Mullinax, drummer Jonathan Peace and bassist Ben Mossman, is a different energy from Doom Flamingo’s fantastical dark synth. “It’s got a slower, psychedelic feel,” he said of Lureto, which offers a lower-key listening experience similar to the atmospheric surf rock of Khruangbin. “I love bands that you can just set it and forget it — you know what you’re gonna get every time when you play it.”
The four-piece dropped its debut single, “Pew Pew,” recorded at Coast Records, and will have an EP out this summer in collaboration with Fairweather Studio.
“For Lureto, we got in the room and just started playing and then pieced all the songs together with different improvisational ideas, like grabbing different puzzle pieces,” he said of the recording process. “It was a shotgun method of recording, and leaving a little bit more up to chance definitely shaped the music. The pandemic was a slow and introspective time, so we came out with this really moody music.”
He’s also working on an original with local producer Wolfgang Zimmerman, and for the first time, he’ll be singing.
“I’ve been writing songs for forever with lyrics, but never put any of them out. This was another pandemic thing where we had a lot of time on our hands,” he said.
Speaking of which, he and Human Resources bassist Aaron Utterbeck also put together an auxiliary rehearsal space at Coast Records called “The Trading Floor” for future endeavors.
Bogan’s tendency to have many side projects is what happens when gigging musicians are told to stay inside and do nothing during a pandemic: “We are like, ‘Okay we’ll start another concept under another alias.’ And then things are opening back up, and we’re like, ‘Wow we are in 17 things now.’“
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