Gaslight Street members make tight, southern rock music

by Keith Ryan Cartwright

Some might think of them as a blues band, while others will think more along the lines of funk. But there's no denying that Gaslight Street is a band rooted in rock 'n' roll and Southern culture.

Revered for their vintage sound, a critic for the online site JamBase wrote that the Charleston-based band — Campbell Brown, Jason Stokes, Frank Nelson, Brooks DuBose and Jon Hager — would appeal to the same fan base as The Black Crowes in their formative days.

"We have refined and defined a cohesive sound," Nelson said, "that is our own unique musical direction."

Brown added, "The fact that we've gotten a knack to understand what each other is trying to say musically, and that translates into a cohesive sound, which we can call our own as a result."

The band recently released "Blue Skies for Fools" and early reviews heralded its debut effort as organic and improvisational as well as honest and rich.

According to DuBose, now that the album is out and the band has begun playing live, its plan now is to continue pushing for more radio play in major markets throughout the southeast.

Although they're hoping to take part in several music festivals this summer, Saturday they'll be performing at The Pour House.

The band recently took time to answer questions about the evolution of its music and the development of the band along with what they learned during its recent trip to the recording studio.

Q: How has the band's sound evolved as the band spends more time together?

Stokes: Musical communication between the band as a whole has progressed and we are much tighter. We now trust each other more on stage and feel we are starting to develop our own stapled Gaslight Street sound.

DuBose: We have kept our same style for the most part, which is groove-based southern rock, but feel we have gotten stronger and tighter as a unit. Most importantly, we are more content and patient with each other in a live setting.

Q: A major part of this band is the live show and that's hard enough to capture on a record. So how, as a band with limited resources, do you account for that when you self-produce your own project?

Stokes: Many of the songs on "Blue Skies for Fools" are based on song writing and we then expand upon it in our live shows and the energy of the audience. If we would have had more resources to choose from, we still probably would have kept it to a minimum to retain our true sound.

DuBose: As a drummer, you have to find that fine line between staying on time, being tight and keeping that energy you would find in our live shows. For example, as a drummer, I was challenged with making the decision as to when we should or should not use a click track or metronome. This can be a debate for many bands during the recording process because sometimes playing to a metronome can sometime lose the soul of the song. It all really depends on what kind of feeling you are trying to achieve in each song.

Nelson: We recreate the pulse of our live shows by the very act of self-producing this project, working hard, putting 26 hours into a 24 hour day and an unforgiving work ethic that transcends from the time spent on the Southeastern track of the American music scene.

Brown: What you really want to happen on a record is to capture that raw energy that the band possesses. I think we were able to harness most of that by recording each track together and minimizing the over dubs. Hardly any of the rhythm tracks were re-recorded over the final track takes that we chose for each song. This gave us an authentic foundation to work with and gives the songs a soul — if that makes sense.

Q: Most bands learn a lot about themselves when they go through the recording process. What did you guys learn about yourselves and what might have evolved because of that process?

DuBose: Originally, we formed this band to be somewhat of a laid-back and loose entity, and recording in such a structured environment was probably a challenge in the beginning. Once we got a little organized, the process became much more natural. It was exciting to see the level of growth we all had as musicians as well as the potential we have as recording artists.

Nelson: I learned that the members of this band possess a true ingrained talent for producing art under the gun as well as from behind the gun.

Brown: No matter how many times you've been there, it forces you to really listen and develop your voice, whether it's instrumentally or vocally.

Keith Ryan Cartwright is a Colorado-based journalist.