Jacob Dillan Summers is not your average indie artist. Raised in a sheltered Christian household, the creative force behind Avid Dancer dropped out of the University of Tennessee when he was a freshman to enlist in the Marines on precisely September 12, 2001 (though he says that he’d “planned on doing it anyway”). During his service, he was a drummer in the United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps, playing up to 300 performances a year, in addition to winning top honors for rudimental snare at the annual bugle-and-drum competition.
Following his time with the Marines, Summers moved to Los Angeles, where he began working on the music that would eventually develop into Avid Dancer—a graceful, guitar-led rock-and-roll project tinged with touches of The Byrds, Galaxie 500, and, as The Fader pointed out in their premiere of new track, “Not Far To Go,” Neil Young. And just as you might expect from those reference points, the laid-back tune is a cruiser, for sure, but it also chugs along pretty hard just the same.
Avid Dancer’s full-length debut 1st Bath is out on April 14 via Grand Jury.
