Saturday night at Club Next brings back to town one of Texarkana’s most popular indie rock quartets—the first time Grey Sky Campaign hits the stage as one in about 5 years.

The band took something of a hiatus when much of the group moved away, while bassist Frank Pryor remained here to run his music studio.

“We haven’t played together in about five years as a band. Three of them have moved to St. Louis and have been playing together. I’m still down here,” said Pryor, who runs SMART Productions in Nash, Texas.

In addition to Pryor, Grey Sky Campaign consists of Darin Lavender on guitar, Craig Kidd on drums and Beau Shoulders on rhythm guitar and vocals.

Together these musicians create a punky, kinetic and energetic brew of emotional rock—jangling guitar shimmering against a plaintive landscape of sound.

With their schedules working just right to get together for the Thanksgiving weekend in Texarkana, they decided to step up together on stage once again.

Grey Sky Campaign formed in 2001, evolving from a previous band. “We played pretty much solid around here and surrounding markets from 2001 to 2003. And that’s when Craig and I moved to St. Louis. We had a blast,” recalled Lavender about those days.

They occupied a unique spot in the local music scene, playing local clubs like The Living Room.

“We were the only one in the area doing it at that time. Every other band was metal or bar bands. We were the only band doing anything indie rock,” said Pryor. “Really all the bands that we played with locally they didn’t really care for us because we were so different.”

They were a band, though, that quickly paid their live dues, working to improve their sound and skills as musicians.

They played any show they could get, said Lavender, including St. Patrick’s Day celebrations two years in a row at Bennigan’s. In 2001 they played more than 100 shows.

“There was one time we did even two shows in a day at two different places,” Pryor said.

“Learn from your mistakes and the more you do it the better you’re going to get. I think that’s true for just about any musician,” Lavender said.

They don’t yet have new material prepped to play live or record for their fans.

But they’re considering a future together.

“We don’t have a new set of material because we kind of had it on the back burner while we were in St. Louis,” said Lavender. “But I think this show coming back together is going to kind of light a fire for us and (we’ll) start working on new material, maybe getting together an album, probably of our favorite songs from earlier days and some newer material.”



(The show ($5 cover) starts around 8 p.m. on Saturday. Playing with Grey Sky Campaign are The Infamous Jaguar Shark, Hank Morris, and Craig and Darin of Grey Sky going acoustic. More info: www.myspace.com/greyskycampaign.)