Shadow, a Seattle-based rock group formed out of friendships at Kamiakin High School, pursues the same long-term goals common to most professions - fame and fortune.
But motivation and inspiration are the nightly pursuits for the five members of the group as they seek unified musical expression during each performance.
"We work together to form a style of music - to form Shadow - and have that music appreciated, " said Ray Leonard, the group's bass player.
Leonard, 22, is the son of Jesse Leonard, former preacher at Kennewick's First Baptist Church. Jesse Leonard now lives in Texas. Young Leonard is one of four 1974 Kamiakin High School graduates who formed Shadow and remain together after four years of national and international travel.
The others are guitarist Cliff White, David Kesterson, and Art Bennett. A fifth group member, guitarist J.P. Pakalenka, is from Boise. Charles Robison, also a Kamiakin graduate, is the group's light man, and Steve Henson of Spokane is sound man.
Shadow performed at Columbia Basin College recently. In an interview, Leonard reflected on Shadow, nearly four years of road tours, demands on a rock group and motivations which keep Shadow going.
After the years together, unity during a performance is what Shadow aims for and what the five generally achieve, said Leonard.
"You know what the other four are capable of doing, so you put out 100 percent," said Leonard. "That's what gets you up."
Robison and Henson, familiar with Shadow's potential and idosyncracies, also can tell if the group is "on" even when it is not perceptible to an audience.

 

"Our road crew can see it and they'll tell us, 'You've really had it tonight,' or if we didn't have it," Leonard explained. When it works, the group finds enormous satisfaction in its teamwork.
It is the stuff of dreams to be the best, to be on top, and it is no different for Shadow.
"That's the dream that keeps us going," Leonard acknowledged. But it is not the inspiration that takes them out night after night on 300-day road trips.
"If we had it tomorrow, I don't think it would make us happy," Leonard said. "Our ultimate goal is to do original music that everybody likes".
"I moved up from Houston and lived here about two or three years," Leonard recalled. "I met these guys who were really just high school friends and then suddenly we realized we got off on the same things."
Bennett played with stage bands in high school, and White and Leonard were briefly with the CBC stage band before forming Shadow. "We started playing the teen center, Walla Walla and Pendleton, and then we realized we had to have a booking agency because the group could not stay alive around here," Leonard said.
The group, which was writing its own music, put together a promotional package and sent it to half a dozen agencies. The Good Music Agency of Missoula, Mont., liked what it saw and picked up on Shadow.
"They started putting us on the road in the Midwest, in Canada and Montana," Leonard recalled. "Then they told us we had to get a keyboard player or guitar player for more versatility so we found J.P. in Boise.
"Since then we've moved to Seattle as our base (still with Good Music) and have been touring down south in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Tulsa, Denver, El Paso and in Vancouver, British Columbia."
Art Bennett, Shadow's drummer, said "Favorite places we've played in are Calgary, Kansas City and especially El Paso."
Life on the road is not a drudgery.
"The road keeps our blood circulating, keeps us in check with ourselves," Leonard explained.
"If a band stays too long in one place, it usually ends up breaking up. Everybody knows you and you get burned out no matter how good you are."
The group hopes to build a recording studio in Seattle and plans to put out its first record album this month on the Cryslis label.