So when four guys first got together in that basement, that was the plan. Oh sure, there was talk about gigs. We’d all done gigs. Lots of ‘em. But this was about fun stuff. Stuff that grabs, grinds, grates or grooves. Stuff we love to play. Old Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power, Spin Doctors… the kind of stuff that left ya buzzed up, and always, ALWAYS, grinning. Then it just naturally morphed into original ideas, maybe from a warm-up riff, or a “hey let’s try this” to “here’s something I’ve been messin’ with”. Then more ideas. More tweaking & arranging. More grins.
It’s not like there wasn’t a high expectation. We’d all been doing this so long. Heck, a couple of us have been jammin’ together since, what, ’93? But the one thing you can never force or count on is chemistry. It was there from the start. Probably, because it’s so fun. What’s been really cool is as we’ve grown together, all those collective years of experience started to add heat to the ingredients. Jams became songs. Lines became harmonies, songs became sets, and grins became all-out laughs.
The most common of denominators throughout has been funk. Sure, lots of blues & rock & pop influences are in there, but we just kept comin’ back to the groove. If it was slow, it was soulful. If it was fast, it was jumpin’. That has to be Jeff & Barry’s thing. Barry’s got that human-metronome / tasty groove thing going on… maybe it’s from his marching band or college jazz days. Jeff has that funky slap bass technique and the groovin’ bottom end. Livin’ on Marcus Miller & Victor Wooten will do that. Add a little of Ken’s guitar…he’s always about the tones, slinky, snarky or snarlin’ (the guy has WAY too many amps). Then top it off with Chris’s versatility on lead guitar… well, let’s just say it’s nice to have a wow factor.
We’ve always had the mindset that the ones with that work hard with less will always trump the ones that work less with more. So we work at it. But make no mistake… this is NOT work. We write, we rehearse, we record, we hang out. And we laugh. A lot. We’re puttin’ the fun in funky. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Right?
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