Red Rooster playing at Molly Malone's Saturday night the 5th
Molly Malone's is hosting an interesting band on Saturday night. Red Rooster, a New York band that is mostly a bluegrass/country/folk/gospel group that also adds a little hip-hop. Did I mention that they're from New York City?
The group has a new record out called WALK and it's really cool. The main two people in the band are Jay Erickson (lead vocals) and Nat Zilkha (lead guitar) and at any given time (on record or live) the songs might be either just those two or it could be expanded to include up to nine piece band. The core group other than Nat and Jay are Susannah Hornsby (vocals and accordion), Andrew Green (banjo), Dave Gould (saxophone), Brandon Doyle
(French horn), Lucas Ives (drums), Daniel Engelman (bass) and and Pete Nilsson (keys).
WALK is their third album and the most mature of the three so far. The songs on the album are infused with the band's musical blend of the traditional and the modern - fusing bluegrass and country with hip hop beats and some jazz (like on the song "Borrowed Money"). Erickson has a cool singing voice and Hornsby has a sound that has elements of Natalie Merchant and Jewel and she blends very beautifully with Erickson - who sometimes sounds a little like Leonard Cohen (who Erickson counts as an influence). The album is really great at mixing the musical styles together and the a couple of the horn players have jazz backgrounds, so you'll hear a little of that sometimes too.
Asked about the blending of the musical genres, Erickson said.
"The purists don't like it so much. It's a blessing though. (The mixing) gives you a broader audience. We're part of the jam band scene and part of the Americana scene."
The Molly Malone show on Saturday - which starts around 9:30 - will feature a six or seven piece band, unlike Red Rooster's Newport Folk Festival lineup - which had 11 people on stage at once.
Red Rooster has been touring the country for the last couple of months and, no surprise, have seen the biggest positive reaction come from people in one specific region - although Erickson says that every part of the country has reacted positively.
"The audiences have been very supportive of us and the South seems to like us the most."
Along with the Molly Malone show, the band plays at the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco on Friday night (the 4th) and at The Clubhouse in San Luis Obispo at 6:30pm on Sunday night.
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