Minimal Size, Maximum Sound: Local duo Jews and Catholics makes a big noise on CD produced by Mitch Easter of Let's Active fame

A mutual gig at The Garage led the Winston-Salem rock group known as Jews and Catholics to collaborate with Mitch Easter.

But when Easter first suggested recording them, Eddie Garcia and Alanna Meltzer were surprised.

"Richard Emmett, who owns The Garage, had the idea to put us on the bill together maybe two years ago," Garcia recalled. "We hit it off, and we played a couple of shows with him (Easter) the following year. The first time we met him, one of the first things he said was ‘I'd really like to record you guys.' And we were like, ‘yeah, we'd like that too,' but we thought it's got to be just crazy-expensive to record with him.'"

After all, Easter is well-regarded in the music world, having been the lead singer of Let's Active and having produced albums for such acts as R.E.M., Suzanne Vega, Velvet Crush and Marshall Crenshaw.

"We thought, that's nice of him to say, but that's not going to happen," Garcia said. "Time moved on, and we thought about it more and more."

Easter said that he was impressed when he first saw the band.

"I thought they were great," he said. "They're pretty exciting live, really loud and really going for it.… They're just a cool band, what can I say?

"You see a million bands that are just four slouchy guys up there strumming their guitars, but Jews and Catholics are not that. They're very vivid."

When Garcia ran into Easter again at a producers' forum in Chapel Hill about a year ago, the idea of working together came back up.

"Just to have that kind of experience would be so stellar," Garcia said, "and then a week later I visited his studio and started feeling it even more."

There was another advantage to having a third party as producer, Meltzer said.

"Having someone else do (the production), we could focus more on playing," she said, "and have someone else do the technical stuff."

"One of the things we knew was we would like to work with someone outside to capture what we wanted to capture," Garcia said, "which was more of what we were really like live, more of that intensity."

As the time to record to album drew closer, Meltzer said she began to get anxious about working with a well-known producer like Easter.

"Before we went in, I was really nervous about it, but he's not an intimidating person," she said. "He was so welcoming and easy to be around."

They recorded at the Fidelitorium, Easter's studio in Kernersville last summer. "We try to make it a little bit glamorous," Easter said. "I think having a proper recording studio is kind of romantic and fun."

The Jews and Catholics album, Who Are? We Think We Are!, is being released widely and on iTunes on May 18, but the band will be selling copies at a launch party Friday at The Garage, and it will be locally available at various stores.

The album is Jews and Catholics' first release on a real record label, Durham's 307 Knox Records. The band had self-produced its first full-length album in 2007 and the subsequent EP in 2008.

Garcia and Meltzer have been working together for about five years, having met while they both were working at Edward McKay Used Books and More.

Both of them developed their musical skills when they were in school.

"I grew up listening to music and going to see all kinds of live music," Meltzer said. Her family exposed her to various types of music while she was growing up in Idaho, but a school assembly in the sixth grade led her to stop just listening to music and start performing.

"Local musicians were showing all the kids about stringed instruments," she said. They demonstrated the violin, cello and bass.

"When they played the bass and it filled the whole room, I knew right then that I wanted to play."

Garcia started playing guitar when he was about 13, and started his first band when he was 14.

"I fell in love with rock music," he said. "I knew how to play, and I got together with a couple of people that didn't know how to play yet, and we made a lot of racket in my room. Eventually we moved on to someone's garage. I took to it rather quickly, much to my grades' dismay."

When they met at Edward McKay, "I had just gotten out of a band relationship," Garcia said. "And we decided to get together and play.… We just kept adding amplifiers to make it louder."

Now that their new album is out, they have plans to tour. So far, they have gone as far west as Chicago, as far south as New Orleans and as far north as Michigan.

"We've covered a lot of ground," Meltzer said, "but we've got plans for more touring next year, maybe working our way to the West Coast and back."

Want to go?

Jews and Catholics will perform Friday at The Garage, 110 W. Seventh St. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. Veelee is the opening act. Admission is $5. For more information, go to www.the-garage.ws or www.jewsandcatholics.com.