INTERVIEW: Cowboy Mouth’s Fred LeBlanc exports NOLA rock to music fans

Fred LeBlanc, the bandleader, vocalist and drummer for Cowboy Mouth, knows a thing or two about rock ‘n’ roll. He’s a fan of both blues and country, and he has connections to punk and grunge as well. The New Orleans band he founded has been growing strong since the 1990s, playing high-profile festivals and touring around the country seemingly nonstop. In 2016, they’ve already booked a top spot at Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest in August, N.J.

For a rock ‘n’ roller who enjoys the thumping rhythms, loud beats and forceful energy of a rock show, it might come as a surprise that audiences can catch LeBlanc playing solo in the coming weeks, including a Dec. 4 concert at Hill Country BBQ in New York City. But don’t expect any less energy when he brings his acoustic guitar to town.

“It’s me on acoustic guitar, but I treat the acoustic guitar like I treat a set of drums,” LeBlanc said recently in a phone interview. “I beat the hell out of it. It’s not your typical acoustic show. … I’m not asking the audience to sit there and listen to my genius or anything like that. It’s designed to be fun. It’s designed to be kind of like a more intimate version of the Cowboy Mouth experience.”

The solo gigs allow LeBlanc to focus more on the singing because he won’t be playing drums. Having a frontman drummer is a rarity in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, and LeBlanc seems to relish the chance to dash expectations.

 

“For me, the best thing is what people seem to get out of the band,” he said of Cowboy Mouth. “People seem to really get a lot out of what we do, and the idea, and the energy and the passion that we put out there, and honestly that’s the best part of the whole thing. Obviously, I enjoy doing what I do and being able to do it. I’m very blessed … but I think the best part of what we do is the effect it has on the audience and the effect the audience has on us.”

LeBlanc recalled a particularly moving encounter he had recently after a festival gig in South Dakota. Cowboy Mouth’s performance went great, and the band decided to hang out at a “Wild West” bar afterward. The next day, the singer was flying back to New Orleans and met a gentleman in the airport who walked up and said he loved the performance.

“I said, ‘Well, thank you very much,'” he remembered. “And I could tell this guy wanted to say more, but he just kind of walked away. And then a few minutes later, he walked up and said, ‘Hey, listen, I’ve been in recovery for 140 days, and the main thing that’s gotten me through it is listening to your music and especially the song ‘I Believe.’ So, thank you for giving me my life back, and thank you for giving me my family back.’ And I was like, I said, ‘You don’t know how much that means to me right now, so thank you.’ And we gave each other a hug, and little moments like that really get the ball out of the park for me. You know, because that’s what’s it all about. That’s the exact effect I wanted us, the band and the music, to have on people.”

LeBlanc said audiences take what the band gives and run it through their own filter, and if the music proves to be a positive catalyst in their lives, it’s all for the best.

“It has absoutely nothing to do with you in terms of any sort of ego,” he said. “I can sit there, and pat myself on the back and say, ‘Look what we did.’ But this guy just decided to use what we do to find something better in himself, and that’s what I know I always wanted to do with my life and my abilities.”

When Cowboy Mouth comes to town, in many ways they are exporters of the famous New Orleans sound. But unlike, say, traditional jazz artists and funk groups, the band is bringing a southern rock mentality to the concert, and that’s unique when considering the artists working in the Crescent City.

 

“We’re not your typical New Orleans band, especially these days because a lot of New Orleans music, especially post-Katrina, has focused on the more traditional elements to really work with, you know a lot more of what New Orleans is traditionally known for,” he said. “We’re a two guitar, bass and drums rock ‘n’ roll band, which is not something that New Orleans is really known for, but we run our suburban roots through our New Orleans influences, you know, or vice versa. We run our New Orleans influences through our suburban roots, and I think that makes us on some levels a very quintessential New Orleans band, simply because there’s nothing that’s off-limits.”

As far as his own musical influences, LeBlanc said he’s always changing and growing. He remembered one rock ‘n’ roll show in New Orleans that will forever be in his memory. It was a Tuesday night, with only 100 people in the audience. The headliner was John Lee Hooker.

“And he was just magnificent,” LeBlanc said. “It was before his big renaissance a few years later.”

Cowboy Mouth embraces that traditional rock ‘n’roll sound, that musical lens that combines blues and country, perhaps best typified by Hooker. “I mean trends come and go,” he said. “Pop stars come and go, and that’s fine. But I really like the fact that there’s this strong element of tradition in what we do, but at the same time we’re not afraid to mess with it because that’s what you have to do to keep interesting.”

Although the lineup of Cowboy Mouth has changed over the years, LeBlanc and John Thomas Griffith, guitarist and vocalist, have been steady since the beginning. LeBlanc started the band but didn’t like the sound in the early months.

“I was actually about to call it quits, and then I had the idea of calling John Griffith,” he said. “And we knew each other. We were fans of each other, and I was just wondering what he was doing. And when he came in the room, and set up and played, it went from being really bad to really special within the space of five seconds. It was one of the weirdest events of my life, in that it was just that immediate. And everything just clicked and gelled.”

Besides their Crawfish Fest date, LeBlanc and company will continue to tour, probably pulling a few selections off their latest release, Go! There might also be a new EP in the works and their annual Mardi Gras tour, of course.

 

“I’m having a lot of fun,” LeBlanc said. “Why stop now?”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Click here for more information on Cowboy Mouth and LeBlanc’s solo dates. His solo tour includes gigs in Washington, D.C.; New York; and Louisiana.