INTERVIEW: The Nightowls offer fresh take on old sounds
Photo: The Nightowls feature 10 musicians, including Ryan Harkrider on lead vocals. Photo courtesy of the band.
The Nightowls, the soul-pop band from Austin, Texas, have created a fresh take on old sounds on their debut album, Good as Gold, and latest EP, Royal Sessions. They are a band of 10 musicians who are inspired by the grooves of the 1960s and 1970s, and this inspiration is evident in their infectiously rousing songs. Try to listen to “Right Around the Corner” without shaking a leg and tapping a toe.
In the coming weeks, the band has booked gigs in Texas, Illinois, New York and Georgia, evidence of their widening scope and growing fan base.
Ryan Harkrider, an Austin native, sings lead vocals for The Nightowls and is excited to see where the band heads in the future. “I am born and raised in Austin, and I have been there my entire life,” Harkrider said recently in a phone interview. “And everybody else in the band is from all over the U.S. — California, Connecticut, Wisconsin — and all of them have come to Austin to play music, play with bands, play rock ‘n’ roll, play specifically jazz, and soul and Motown.”
Harkrider said the band members came together to play some songs one day, and musically everything worked out. Eventually they started choosing dates on the calendar to book gigs, and The Nightowls were born.
“It took six months for anything to really happen,” he said. “We were working on songs, the show, a look, an idea, but in Austin it caught on really quick, which has always been a beautiful thing. It really only took one or two shows, and we were already moving forward.”
Most of the musicians in The Nightowls have been with the group for two or three years, which is notable because of the high turnaround in bands with so many players. Harkrider said the core members have been together for a long time, and they have learned how to write and perform effectively with one another.
“You can anticipate what they’re going to do, and we can all write things together, collaborate better,” Harkrider said. “So for the last two years it’s been a really beautiful process for all of us, streamlining everything that we do, and really the band just started sounding like a band and not just like 10 people all trying to make music together.”
The sound of The Nightowls will almost definitely bring listeners back to memories of the 1960s and 1970s when Motown, soul and funk songs were frequently on the radio. To replicate that sound, Harkrider and company needed to have many musicians and many instruments represented; that’s the only way to be authentic. So The Nightowls feature Amos Traystman on guitar, Rob Alton on bass, Ben Petree on drums, Oscar Interiano on keyboards, Michael Rey on horns, Andrew McElmore on horns, Javier Stuppard on horns, Ellie Harkrider on background vocals and Tara Williamson on background vocals.
“There’s obviously a huge performance aspect to having all those pieces around, which for a band like us, our band is rooted in the live performance,” Harkrider said. “So we want to always have that energy, trying to capture that, harness it. Whether we’re recording or whether we’re performing, that’s really important to us.”
For the band’s new EP, Royal Sessions, the musicians headed to Memphis to record at Royal Studios, a place that was pivotal to the careers of Al Green, John Mayer and Rod Stewart. “We decided that we really wanted to make a pilgrimage,” Harkrider said. “We really wanted to make a trip to make a record in one of the Meccas of soul music, which is Famed Studios. … You go to a historical room. You’re very much inspired by the music that came out of it. These studios haven’t changed much in the last 50-60 years. The walls are the same. The carpet is the same. The drums, you know, when we were at Royal Studios, we were able to use the same drums and same mics that were used on ‘Love and Happiness’ by Al Green.”
Although Royal Sessions was born in Memphis, the band has that unmistakable Austin identity. Harkrider called the Texas capital on a good place for a musician. “Our whole town has been very good to us, and we always try to make sure that anything we do in our city, we’re trying to return that favor,” he said. “Everybody is very supportive of each other. Everybody is sharing musicians, sharing ideas. It’s very much a community, so we’re grateful for that, especially with a band of 10 people. We’re always looking for new talent.”
Harkrider added: “With the mojo we’ve had recently, we’re really excited about making another record, always getting back on the road, performing. We think there’s a lot of great things for us. We traveled and will travel all over the U.S. this year, and we’re really starting to connect the dots of bigger and better shows. More people are coming out, and for us getting people to clap their hands and stomp their feet is really what we want to do. It’s going to be a great year for us.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Click here for more information on The Nightowls.
