If musicians from New Orleans learn nothing else, it’s this: They’d better bring it.
Musical chops, stage presence, snazzy clothes, snappy patter — every trick of the trade is necessary to cultivate a following in the Crescent City, and if a band like the Dirty Bourbon River Show can make it there, they have a solid shot of making it just about anywhere, drummer Dane “Bootsy” Schindler told The Daily Times this week.
“Being from New Orleans and being able to entertain the crowd and keep them there is important, because there are about 20 other shows in the city on any given night, and every musician can play really well,” Dane “Bootsy” Schindler, Dirty Bourbon River Show’s drummer, told The Daily Times this week. “It’s important not only to play well but to entertain well, too, even if you’re out on the street busking, because you want to keep the crowd around that tip bucket. It’s just really important for a New Orleans band to have that entertainment factor, so the crowd doesn’t move on to the next bar or the next band.”
Schindler is one of two New Orleans natives in the band; growing up in the Big Easy, music was as much a part of life as oxygen and water, and it was almost impossible not to get swept up in it. Blues, jazz, Dixieland, ragtime — it all flowed through the city’s streets like the muddy Mississippi, coating everyone in their paths with a soulful sort of resonance that’s beautifully captured by the Dirty Bourbon River show, which performs Saturday night at Scruffy City Hall in downtown Knoxville.
I started wanting to play the drums when i saw how much fun it was for musicians going by at Mardi Gras and seeing how much control you had over the crowd, how you could instantly change the mood of a whole crowd of people,” he said. “That was really cool and intriguing for me, and when I got behind the drumkit for the first time, it just kind of blossomed and kept going. Growing up in New Orleans, you learn to really love and respect musicians because of all the things they can do with it. Just marching down a New Orelans street, they can turn heads everywhere and get people just walking around to start dancing at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. You can just change somebody’s day or night, and just seeing how much power came with being a musician in the city made me want to do it.”
As a student at Loyola University studying the music industry, he met multi-instrumentalist Noah Adams, the guy who would put together Dirty Bourbon River Show. Before, Schindler was a fan of rock and punk; Adams started introducing him to artists like Tom Waits and unexplored worlds of jazz and American music that he began to pursue on the drums. Part of it was a love of music; part of it was self-preservation, he added — because being a one-trick pony in New Orleans can be a career death sentence for a musician.
“Being a New Orleans musician, it’s super important to learn so many different styles if you want to play gigs, because if you get a Latin gig, and all you can play is rock, you won’t be asked back,” Schindler said. “We all kind of know different styles of music, and with Dirty Bourbon, we’re taking that mentality and those opportunities and combining them into one. With this band, we don’t have to pigeonhole ourselves into one genre; we’ve built something that’s allowed to go in different directions, and that’s what’s the most fun to me. We have all of these different grooves and feelings to go for with these songs, and it’s always really fresh and really fun.”
It’s little wonder, then, that the guys can take those songs — captured most recently on the album “Important Things Humans Should Know,” released earlier this year — and make a place for themselves on stages up and down the East Coast. Because that “fun” of which Schindler speaks also applies to a Dirty Bourbon River Show performance. From abruptly switching instruments to the occasional breathing of a fireball to impromptu group chants mid-show, the guys aim to prove that there’s a reason they describe themselves as a “show,” Schindler added.
“It’s a collective sound and image, and it’s just a lot of fun when you can get that much involved with your character on stage,” he said. “We put on a show for people to have an experience. There are so many bands on the road right now, it’s important to have things that set you apart and to make sure you’re good musicians and good entertainers. I’d like to think we’re putting it all on stage and giving people something they’ve never seen before.”