Band of Heathens headlining at Schroeder Hall Saturday
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If you go:
Band of Heathens will play at 9 p.m. Saturday at Schroeder Dance Hall. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Band of Heathens will be featured on Austin City Limits on Nov. 7 on PBS, along with ...
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If you go:
Band of Heathens will play at 9 p.m. Saturday at Schroeder Dance Hall. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Band of Heathens will be featured on Austin City Limits on Nov. 7 on PBS, along with Elvis Costello. Check your local listings for times.
Band of Heathens isn't your typical band. From how they formed to how they operate to even how they got their name has been a fluke, albeit a happy fluke indeed.
Since starting out as a side project for a group of Austin musicians in 2005, Band of Heathens is now climbing up the charts and busting out in the Texas music scene. Their last album hit No. 1 on the Americana Music Association radio chart and wound up on the AMA's Top 100 albums of 2008 list.
They were also were nominated for a 2009 Emerging Artist of the Year and won Best New Band at the 2007 Austin Music Awards.
"The band actually formed from four other bands. It was a side project for us but by the end of 2006, it became the main gig for all of us," band member Gordy Quist said.
Because of the way they formed, the band has no front man. Instead, Quist, Ed Jurdi and Colin Brooks take turns being the singer/songwriter and each can play multiple instruments. Bassist Seth Whitney and drummer John Chipman round out the group.
"It wasn't an approach taken on purpose. It's just the way it worked out. Each of us were in other groups, so when we came together as a band, there were different front men and songwriters," Quist said. "So the way it has naturally fallen is that everyone sings and plays a lot of different instruments."
Even how they got their name was an accident. The band used to casually get together and regularly play on Wednesday nights, which they called the Good Time Supper Club. As the group gained steam, their name appeared as Heathens in the newspaper.
"We're not sure who did it but we have various theories on who was behind it. But for whatever reason the name stuck," Quist said. "We started going by that name until our record label's legal people told us it was copyrighted and so we became Band of Heathens."
What isn't a fluke, however, is the band's sound. On Saturday, local music lovers will get to find out for themselves when the band plays at Schroeder Dance Hall.
Although the band is reluctant to define their music in just one genre, they simply call it rock 'n roll.
"I don't really like labels. They don't seem useful and leave too much out. They're too narrow," Quist said. "There's a ton of different genres our music encompasses and we're on the fence between a bunch of genres. We just mix it all together and it comes out the way it sounds."
The band's latest album, "One Foot in the Ether," was released Sept. 15. Although they had a five-album record deal offer from a major-independent label, the band instead opted to release it on their own BOH Records.
Band of Heathens also has three prior albums, two live CD's and one studio. For more information about the band, go to www.bandofheathens.com.
