Rob Suchan, lead singer of Koufax, doesn’t like being labeled. When asked where his band falls on the spectrum of whiney emo to pretentious college indie rock, Suchan says they can’t be placed anywhere.

“We’re a pop band with a personality,” Suchan says.

Formed in March 1999, Suchan’s band Koufax was initially just a “means of travel” with no aspirations of stardom. But as Koufax began to travel, it also evolved into something more than just transportation.

For the last six years Koufax has changed everything from its record label to its sound to even its lineup – now Suchan on guitar and vocals, Ben Force on guitar and bass, Jared Rosenberg on keys and synthesizers, Rob Pope on bass and Ryan Pope on drums. These drastic transitions never were calculated or forced, according to Suchan. He says the makeup of the band has changed because of people’s willingness to commit and ability to handle the financial unpredictability.

Over the course of his career, Suchan says he has realized that dealing with the demands of touring and facing the possibility of being broke isn’t for everyone.

“We are lucky enough now to actually pay members to play,” Suchan says.

This attitude, according to Suchan, also has caused the band to adopt a more fluid nature instead of the rigid structure of most bands that are out now. Suchan says that while this constant change doesn’t really allow for “chemistry” to build, it does create certain benefits.

“We avoid having unnecessary headlocks,” Suchan says. “Everyone’s there because they want to be.”

This collective group structure has added an interesting dynamic to the band that is prevalent in their sound. Band members and accompanying musicians hail from across the United States, as well as from overseas nations such as Germany.

On their first two full-length albums, 2000’s It Had to Do with Love and 2002’s Social Life, Suchan and company established themselves as ’70s pop/rock musicians with an emphasis on piano and guitar. With the addition of former Get-Up Kids members the Pope brothers in 2004, Koufax’s newest release, 2005’s Hard Times are in Fashion has adopted a much more lo-fi personality.

Suchan jokes that for the band’s next album, the geographic and ethnic diversity of its members is even more varied than previous lineups.

“We’d pretty much take anybody, except for the English. Their currency is too strong so they would probably be harder to pay with American dollars,” Suchan says.

Koufax’s chameleon-type personality hasn’t only made it difficult for Suchan himself to define the band, but he says it has also proven to be a major issue for the band’s former label, Vagrant Records.

Home to the likes of Dashboard Confessional and Alkaline Trio, Vagrant has developed a stigma for being a record label that markets heartache and pop-punk. According to Suchan, Koufax was unwilling to conform to Vagrant’s standards and was especially uninterested in getting wrapped up in an image. Suchan says he was especially turned off by the label’s inadvertent way of manipulating its sound.

“(Record executives) will have you perform in front of them and say that they just don’t ‘hear it,’ and then ask you to try it again in a different way,” Suchan says.

According to Suchan, bands eventually become completely detached from who they really are by adopting an accommodating attitude toward executives’ requests. Suchan said he decided that although bands fall prey to this “slippery slope” all the time, he refused to allow Koufax to become a victim and parted with Vagrant in 2004.

While unsigned and financially unstable, the band began to work on Hard Times are in Fashion. Koufax not only managed to pull off the album, but also demonstrate enormous musical growth.

The most notable distinction of Hard Times are in Fashion is its social commentary. With Suchan held up in Prague for six months, the rest of the band for only three, he sat back and watched the people around him discuss and react to current political issues. Enmeshed in the political fervor building up in Europe as a result of the 2004 presidential election in the United States, Suchan says he realized that he was witnessing an entirely new perspective. The European way of addressing society’s current conditions head-on was a stark contrast to the much more “hush, hush” American method, according to Suchan. This experience eventually led Suchan to “lyrically attract” his listeners to his eye-opening experiences.

In the past year, Koufax has re-established a home with Doghouse Records and devoted itself to a rigorous tour schedule. Suchan says audiences have matured since the band began touring. He attributes this to the open-minded community that has developed as a result of the sharing networks created by new technology that make music more accessible, such as iPods.

Even though Suchan has maintained his sincerity while trying to balance Koufax’s sound between old influences and new developments, he says he still can’t categorize its sound. When asked to define “Koufax” as a word, Suchan says “very fun trouble.”

That’s not a bad place to start.

Koufax will play a 21+ show Monday, Oct. 31 at The Darkroom, 2210 W. Chicago Ave.4

Medill freshman Andrea Hart is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].