INTERVIEW: Brass-a-Holics ready to spread their ‘Word on the Street’ with live recording
Brass-a-Holics, the band that mixes a unique blend of brass, funk and go-go music, will head to the House of Blues in New Orleans on Friday, Feb. 3 for a memorable night of danceable tunes, shout-and-response calls and plenty of late-night fun. What will make the night extra special are the cameras and microphones who will record the concert for a special live album and documentary.
Winston Turner, co-founder and bandleader of Brass-a-Holics, said he is excited to capture the group’s live sound for adoring fans who have been pining for more music from the burgeoning musicians.
“It’s really special to us,” Turner said recently in a phone interview. “First thing is it’s been a while before we’ve actually had an opportunity to put out what we actually do. Doing this for a number of years, what we do on the stage live is something that we heard [fans say], ‘You guys are so amazing live. You guys, I can’t believe you guys played this long. I can’t believe you guys played this song. I can’t believe you guys can do this.’ So it’s something that was so overwhelming.”
Brass-a-Holics partnered with House of Blue and Live Nation on the special night, and they have been working on the project for some time. This is a full-on musical, media, public-relations effort that even has its own hashtag: #WordOnTheStreet. That social-media campaign seems appropriate because the new album — the band’s second — will be titled Word on the Street — Live From House of Blues New Orleans. It’s set for release during the upcoming festival season. A portion of proceeds will benefit the New Orleans Performing & Arts Society.
“We need to present this music live to give you guys the opportunity to revisit some of the songs that people love, along with some of the new material,” he said. “They’ll have an opportunity to see it and hear it, and once that idea was brought to the table, everybody was on board. We jumped on top of it and said, let’s try to make all type of things work with it. Like, how can we make it come full scale? How can we bring it to life?”
The Brass-a-Holics have been one of the mainstays in the city’s brass scene, playing concerts both in their hometown and throughout the United States. They’ve played so many gigs since their founding in 2010 that they have hundreds of songs in their musical toolkit.
“We pretty much have a list of tunes that we know are in the rotation of things that we normally do,” Turner said. “Know all the plays in the book, and be ready to run the play if it comes. So what we want to do now with this project is focus on the ones that people love mostly, so we’ve actually been trying to narrow things down to maybe 100 songs and see if we can stick with that.”
Prior to founding Brass-a-Holics, Turner was a trombonist for St. Augustine Marching 100 and Southern University Human Jukebox marching bands. He branched off and kickstarted this new band when he began combining New Orleans brass with the go-go sounds from Washington, D.C., and it has been a winning match ever since.
“I was playing with another band at the time, and we experimented with the go-go sound,” he said. “The energy that we got from the crowd and … [the energy] the go-go gave with the call and response, it was something that was a little bit different here in New Orleans with horns and the style of music that we play here. What if we slowed it down and made it a little bit funkier and just kept everything with the brass feel but just try it a different way. That was the idea. How could you bring New Orleans to D.C. to a second line to old R&B to maybe rock, whatever, but still have the flavor of being unique with what you’re doing. That was the idea that we were trying to come up with.”
At a young age, Turner considered being a music producer for a living. He grew up in the MTV generation and became a connoisseur of music. However, because of the musically rich surroundings of New Orleans, he found himself experiencing Mardi Gras parades and second lines. These opportunities gave exposed him to performing music, and it felt like a right fit.
“Now instead of just thinking that you can produce music, maybe let me dabble with actually playing it,” he said. “So from that standpoint, you start to actually perform. Maybe you start writing a little bit, and you get an opportunity to play in front of a crowd, whether it’s outside or inside. And you start to gain a little bit of experience of performing for people, and now you can have that idea of, do I really want to be maybe a behind-the-scenes producer? Or do I feel as though I have my niche as far as performing? And by having so many opportunities playing in the marching band, playing in second line, I started to feel that, you know, I might be better as a performer. I said, let me roll the dice and try my luck with that.”
Even though he switched from producing to performing, there is one constant in Turner’s musical life, and that’s the trombone. He came up in the era when schools in New Orleans had certified band directors, and Turner found these mentors skilled at helping students choose the best instrument for their capabilities. “So at that time, I wanted to play a number of instruments, but that instructor was adamant, like you have the best sound with this instrument,” he said. “You may like this one, but this is where you belong. And I took his advice, and I stayed right there with the trombone.”
Now as a mentor himself, Turner finds himself in a position of being a bandleader. When looking for musical partners, Brass-a-Holics appreciates any performer who is a good fit and a good individual. Talent is commendable, but working with the band seems to be the most important quality.
“That’s one thing that we’ve been lucky to have, just a good fit of guys that gel,” Turner said. “What can you bring to the table? Are you fun? Do you like supporting the ideas of others? If you can do that and show everybody else that I’m willing to work with your idea, I’m willing to help support what you want to do. The guys are willing to support what you want to do, and we make it work. That’s what we’re looking for, a good group of individuals, whoever is willing to be on the team. We’re just looking for some good team players. … The group that we have now and some of the guys that we had before were just real good team players.”
That group includes Turner on trombone and vocals, Tannon Williams on trumpet and vocals, Robin Clabby on saxophone and vocals, Matt Clark on lead guitar, Reginald Nicholas on drums, Dwayne Muhammad on percussion, and Jay Winfield and Keiko Komaki on the keys.
This team will bring the sound to every concert they play, but the band members expect the audience to bring the energy. “What we do like is a crowd that’s ready to enjoy the music,” Turner said. “That’s the most fun. It’s really hard to get a crowd into it by the end of the night, but the most fun is when you’re playing in front of any crowd that’s ready to react and enjoy the music, whether it’s big or small. It could be 10,000 people that you’re trying to win by the end of the night, which is very difficult, and you can be successful with it. Or you can play in front of a room of five people that really, really enjoy from beginning to end.”
He added: “Sometimes when we travel, they’re expecting a New-Orleans-type band, but what they get is kind of different from what they expected. And they still appreciate it because, by them loving New-Orleans-type music, it means they gave it a chance. And that’s one thing that we embraced by being musicians from New Orleans and people that appreciate the New Orleans tradition and the style of music and our culture, I mean those individuals are willing to give it a chance And what comes from it, hey, they’ll appreciate it. If it’s more this, they’ll appreciate that. If it’s more of that, they’ll appreciate it, but they’re open-minded to leave the boundaries open to whatever happens.”
Turner, ready for the big concert at House of Blues and French Quarter Fest on the horizon in April, is a man who lives for today. “I pretty much live in the moment with the goal of never going backward,” he said. “Every experience I try to learn from it, build from it and keep going forward. But live in the experience of the moment, and try to make the best of it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Brass-a-Holics will play a special concert Friday, Feb. 3 at House of Blues in New Orleans. The show will be recorded for a future live album-documentary. The band will also play this year’s French Quarter Fest in April. Click here for more information and tickets.
