Feature

For many bands, playing Nashville is a dream come true. This music capital is a tough town to find a gig, and it has chewed up as many as it has embraced. Some play for free just for the chance to perform on stage in Nashville. When I spoke with Caddle guitarist Drew Akin, they were in a van heading down the interstate for this musical Promised Land.

SC: How did you guys get together as a band?

DA: It started about three-and-a-half years ago, Phillip (Hyde, Lead Vocals) came up with a new group that he was wanting to put out, so he started auditioning musicians. The group that is together now is basically a collaboration of multiple hirings and firings of drummers, bass players and guitar players. Pretty much everything we could find, we’ve been scraping to come up with the right formula for a band for awhile.

I actually tried out for the band from the very beginning, but I was fresh out of a rock-and-roll band and my drummer was kind of a stipulation with getting into the band. He wasn’t cutting the mustard, so I didn’t get the gig either. I started working on another project, and luckily I got back into the band after they needed another guitar player. At the time we had three guitar players, a bass player, a drummer and Phillip singing lead, so we had six guys in the band. Through people not really looking out sound-wise and style-wise, we came up with the formula that we have now with Jimmy Finney on drums; Chris Pottraz (we call him C.P.), he’s the bass player. Eric Watters is the lead guitar player. I’m the rhythm guitar player and sing back-up vocals, and Phillip Hyde is the lead singer and the brains behind the machine.

SC: You listen to your music, and you hear a hybrid of punk, rock, outlaw country and R&B. Where did this musical formula come from? Who brought what to the band?

DA: I guess you could probably say that C.P. and Phillip have a lot of rock-and-roll influence. Phillip is also big into old country. I was raised singing gospel, and I’ve always liked a lot of R&B stuff. I’m also like a lot of bluegrass. Jimmy and Eric had a band together for about 12 years called The Suburban Love Junkies, and they still play that every now and then.

When they decided to join Caddle, that’s when we decided to change our sound a little bit from the punk sound to more of a meet-in-the-middle version of Southern Rock, rock and country. It seems like rock and roll for what it’s known in the popular market had become pretty cheesy and not necessarily honest. I think people in country music are trying to get away from some of the pop media market and try to look for some honest country.

That’s basically what Caddle is. We sing about every day life that goes on in the South. For that part pretty much, for people all over the world, it’s about people who work hard, and when they’re not working, they really like to work as hard at partying. We’re the working man’s band.

SC: Yeah, you should ask Little Jimmy Dickens while you’re in Nashville what he thinks of Garth Brooks.

DA: (Laughing) I guess mainly when people ask what we sound like, we say New Southern Rock. There’s people in rock and roll looking for a little bit of country, and there’s people in country looking for a little bit of rock and roll.

SC: You guys showcased the Atlantis Music Conference last summer, and I’ve been to it and know how cutthroat the competition is when it comes to catching the industry’s ear. What was that experience like?

DA: That’s actually the kind of conferences that we’ve done. We’ve done the Midwest Music Conference in Indianapolis, which went over really well. We actually ended up meeting a band called the Villebillies, who we’re playing a couple of dates with this month. All the festivals we’ve ever played in are usually around people who don’t usually get to see our kind of music.

It’s nice to get involved in those crowds where you get fresh ears on the music you’re trying to present to people. We also like the fact that when we play those kind of festivals that we’re in front of a good bit of people, and our stage show is just as good as our record (“Raise ‘em High”) is. I really think that we’ve worked really hard on making the record convey the energy that we bring to the stage.

SC: What was it like making ‘Raise ‘em High’?

DA: We took kind of a hiatus to De Soto Caverns and rented a cabin out in the woods just hanging out with each other writing songs, playing guitars and working on lyrics. A couple of guys went down to the river, and Eric and Phillip were sitting up in the cabin when we came back up. They had started working on these couple of parts. So, we took it inside. We had our drums, guitars and bass and everything set up, so we just started working the song out. That’s how we’ve started writing songs now. Somebody comes up with an idea, and we all get together and feed off of that.

SC: With the new album out, what’s Caddle got planned for the next year?

DA: We’ve already got about half a new record finished. I think probably by next year we’ll have another record out. We’re going to keep putting records out and keep traveling. We have 15 shows this month and 17 shows next month. It’s the choice that we’ve made. It’s the love that we have for playing music.

We’re not getting paid to play tonight, but we’re traveling four-and-a-half hours to be in front of some people for 30 minutes. We believe in the product that we’re putting out there. You can come to our shows and relax, and it helps you blow off a little steam. Everybody’s stressed out nowadays, and everybody’s working hard. This is basically for me and the other guys in the band, it’s our 30 minutes to a couple of hours to blow off steam. It’s a good thing to have in our lives.

Stephen Centanni is Lagniappe music editor. Contact him at scentanni@lagniappemobile.com.

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