Living in a Box

The gates to the heftiest slice of music offered on a Sunday - or most any other day - could slide open at anytime. It all depends on when someone keys in the code to Billeaud's Boat Storage.

Located in Broussard, Billeaud's is the spine of Lafayette's young music scene, with an untold number of bands renting space to practice their music. It's hard to say when it all started or how, but some estimates put it at one-and-a-half to two years ago. For a bunch of musicians blaring music across a storage facility, they went unnoticed for several months.

"We started out where we had one sneak in on us. They just rented a unit from us, and we didn't know what it was," says Tex Plumley, president of Billeaud, a real estate company that owns 12 office buildings, two shopping centers in Lafayette and industrial parks.

"One weekend, one of us was here and saw them playing," Plumley says. "They were nice kids. We talked to them, made sure they took care of everything and it worked out."

After word got out that the facility allowed bands to rent space to practice and store their equipment, bands began signing up. One group told all their friends who told all their friends and ... well, you get the picture. Currently, Plumley says there are only around 10 bands renting space, but judging from a Sunday visit, that number can't be accurate. On a rainy Sunday, there were at least six bands braving the heat and moisture. According to some tenants, the number is more like 30 or 40. Plumley's assertion might be flawed because bands might not know that they should tell the company of their purpose and some bands share space.

Billeaud offers space ranging from $75 to $125 a month, depending on the size of the locker. After a few bands left carpet hanging on the walls, to improve sound quality, the facility began to require bands to leave a deposit.

When it comes to other tenants, they really don't seem to mind storing their boats next door to an upstart band.

"Actually, (we) had some people say it was enjoyable,"says Plumley. "They were over there working on their boat and they had the music going on. We have had nobody complain."

Another thing Plumley, who admits to sampling the audio buffet, doesn't mind is that the bands' presence "gives us a little extra measure of security because there are people there."

For Plumley, the rationale for a band to plop down $70 a month is simple enough.

"Obviously, they live at home and their parents don't want them to be playing a lot," he says.

The facility is located in an area where neighbors and parents won't complain about the ruckus. The only neighbors Billeaud's has is a train track and trees.

Locking yourself away and cranking up the half stacks is not a new tactic among musicians. Local rock vets Frigg A-Go-Go have been renting space at Carencro Security Storage for three or four years, according to electric organ and pianist Sir Christian Leo. And, he says, a couple of their neighbors are also bands.

The Lafayette-based band made the short trek out to Carencro after repeated run-ins with Johnny Law made the members ponder a new place to practice. After a few calls to in-city facilities, which were either out of their price range or wouldn't let a band rent space or both, they contacted CSS.

"This guy in Carencro said he don't mind," Leo says. "We might wilt the corn but that's about it."



It's a humid Sunday in the aisles of Billeaud's Boat Storage. The air inside the 392 metal boxes is almost unbearable. In the distance, lightning pops and a light drizzle coats the ground. But that's no deterrent for bands like Article 11, who are set to plow through a Sunday evening practice session.

Here, they can be as loud as they want. Here, the cops don't come to shut them down, but only to catch a free concert. Here, no one is screaming, "Turn it down, longhair!" in the late night hours. Here, they can play as loud and as long as their speakers allow.

Article 11 rented the practice space in November after they heard about it, "through a friend. It was more convenient for us because we can only practice at night because we work. So the best time to practice would be at night," says guitarist Aaron Savant.

Other than the lack of interference from the local magistrates, he cites the rumpus that drifts from unit to unit as a benefit that gives bands a competitive edge and calls for them to improve their sound.

"You kinda get a taste of everybody's sound that is practicing there," he adds. "It's kind of like competition, but not really, 'cause when you hear someone practicing, and they sound good, you go check them out. If it sounds really good, you gotta work on your stuff and get it better than them. When they practice and they hear you, they are like, 'Damn.'"

Article 11 inhabits the bottom rung of the storage ladder, renting the smallest space. Their box, on the F Block, is cramped and humid enough to bake a pot roast. Some bands hang carpet on the walls to help the sound, but the only carpet hanging in their locker is in the shape of their name. A wilted star hangs on another wall, surely for decoration and not audio insulation.

As they play, the singer and guitarist of the five-member outfit escape the heat and tight quarters onto the wet concrete. Between songs, sounds from another band drift in and interrupt their banter, which contains stabs at guessing the temperature. The general consensus is that it is about a million degrees.

The downside to the facility becomes more prevalent as more bands learn of the practice space. Savant claims to have seen about 10 bands playing at once, "which is really not cool."

"There's too much sound. None of the walls are insulated, so all the sound travels room to room." he adds. "When you have that many bands playing, you have to go over them just to hear anything. "

Bobby Beard of Isoelectric, a classic rock-influenced, early modern rock originals and covers band, agrees that the sound quality is not great in their slightly larger A Block space, but there are fewer interruptions than other places.

"There's no distractions like there are at home (where there are) ... girls, phones, food," says Beard of his band's space. "There's nothing there to do but play music, and you're forced to look at each other and work together to pull a song off. We used to use a huge storage facility, about the size of a small, private, metal shop, and it was totally counterproductive at every practice. Now we have to make every rehearsal good, and we have to deal with band issues because there is nowhere to run off and hide."

Sunday, Savant says, is a peak day for bands, especially after the unrelenting sun eases off and the metal hotbox becomes a touch more hospitable.

On that late August Sunday, there were at least six bands playing and the number climbed higher as the nighttime hours approached. At about 7 p.m., their across-the-way neighbor shows up and begins to unload.

Ahab!, an instrumental rock band, shares a small space with Ballistic Missile, a band that two of their three members used to perform with. Like Article 11, Ahab! cites the noise as a constant stickler. And, like Article 11, Ahab! finds it can have its positive side.

"It's awesome. You get to see all the good bands for free," says Glynn Trautman, bass player. "Every day we pass by here, we look to see if there are cars here."

"Any given night of the week its like the Strip ... or the way the Strip used to be," says Josh Guidry, drummer.

On top of hearing countless free shows, Ahab! uses the space to network with other bands, whose styles range from math rock to metal, to hardcore punk to ska, to instrumental bands like themselves.

"You watch a lot of bands, but you get a lot of exposure to other bands and, in that sense, you can get connections, good hook-ups with other bands and if you want to go play at a certain place," says Trautman.

"That's happened many times. We have hooked up shows with bands we have met here," says Jake Lasseigne, guitarist.

One of the interesting things about Lafayette's music scene is there appears to be more swapping among bands than wives at a swingers' convention. Many of the bands at the space collaborate and intermingle with other bands. Bands as distinct as '80s metal cover band Sanity's Mask share a guitarist with a Zydeco band. The space doesn't limit this. If anything, it provides the musicians a key party.

"(It's) pretty incestuous," says Byron Tatman of The Object at the End of History, a band that rents a behemoth space in a separate section of the facility reserved for the big boats.

"I think the music scene, right now, is the best that it has ever been," says Dallas Griffith, Object's bassist. Without it, "Lafayette's music scene, would be ... "

"Severely lacking," Tatman concludes.