Athens-based Joe Brown's Wayward Sons is probably one of the only bands named after a friend from a freshman residence hall.
Andy Bielski, drums, and Buck Nemecek, guitar and vocals, were roommates in Ryors Hall, where they lived in the same hallway as the band's namesake Joe Brown. Original members Nemecek and John Corliss, bass and vocals, named the band after their friend as a tribute of sorts. Brown plays the cello around Athens and plays with the band occasionally.
The band began with Nemecek and Corliss. Bielski and Ryan Gebhart, keyboards, joined during Winter Quarter of this year.
Bielski and Nemecek played music together and in a band called The Vincent Black Shadow last year. Corliss and Gebhart met through the Athens Musician Network. They found keyboardist Gebhart through the Web site, http://www.athensmusician.net, where they have posted shows and contacted other bands.
It's good for the music scene
Corliss said.
They began playing in Athens during the fall at O' Hooley's, 24 W. Union St., Casa Nueva, 4 W. State St., and the Smiling Skull Saloon, 108 W. Union St., where they drew crowds.
The band is always altering its music and exploring genres.
When we play we don't play the song the same way twice Corliss said.
Their style is loosely structured
Corliss said. No one leads, and it is more of a collaborative effort.
We find a groove and we explore it to its fullest capacity
Corliss said.
Their tagline is kick you in the ass blues
but each member brings in his own musical influences.
You can definitely hear the blues influence in our music
like the dirty Mississippi blues
Corliss said.
Bielski, a classically trained bassist, brings a jazz drummer style to the group and describes his playing as a bare knuckle brawl between Keith Moon and someone who doesn't know how to play the drums.
Gebhart counts DJ Shadow and Radiohead as influences.
I really don't listen to any of the stuff they listen to at all
but they're like
'well
you can play whatever you want to play
