Catching up with The Stoneriver Boys

Posted by Mars On November - 22 - 20113,274 views

Photo by Maris

Rockabilly Online caught up with Dave Gonzales and Mike Barfield of the Stoneriver Boys before their show at DB’s in Utrecht (the Netherlands).
It’s the 3rd tour of Europe for the Stoneriver Boys in 2011 this time the band did a three week tour of Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium.

Dave and Mike:

It’s been a pretty good year for us so far. The band has mostly been playing in Europe in 2011 as said it’s the 3rd time where coming over. This year we are touring more in Europe than in the US.

This line up has been together now for nearly two years. In 2010 when the record came out  we toured the US covering 40.000 miles playing coast to coast (supporting our record). We still love coming over to Europe  (both Dave and Mike have been here many times) there are great festivals over here and we loved  the fact DJ’s are spinnning  vinyl over here, playing raw real records.

Has to be said we spotted Dave sitting right beside the DJ when we walked in.

Photo by Maris

Both Mike and myself are real vinyl freaks Dave says, we have a huge vinyl collection and I even have a jukebox.

The album was recorded with the use of vintage gear and with the entire band playing at the same time, instead of recording everything separate which we feel takes the soul and life feel out of an album.We are very proud of the record it still sounds fresh even after it’s been a few years since we cut it. It was hard recording the album as 4 really good people passed away during the recording proces. Every time we cut a session someone passed away. For that reason we hope this album has a good long life it sounds hungry, desparate and sad. We put a lot of emotion  in it while recording it.

Photo by Maris

First song of the album is Bluebonnet Blue  a tribute to Steven Bruton (who wrote the song) and is one of the friends that past away. So it’s great for us to see people enjoying real music by real people, life music has changed so much since we started out.

People in Europe are open to the mixing of styles. A fan came up to us and said: I love Mozart, Zappa and the Stoneriver Boys. That’s what we’re about mixing up styles and grooves and creating on the spot, not playing things  the same every time. Which also means that some nights are better then others. We have drunks coming over while my guitar was out of tune saying that’s the best I ever heard. I answered but you have been drinking all night. Still it was the best he ever heard.

Other nights we nail it and nobody says a word or reminds Dave that he used to be a great guitar player and they wonder what happened.

Rockabilly online’s version of what happened is: Dave and  Mike hooked up, found a great bunch of musicians and created their own brand new style, mixing Honky Tonk with Soul and a pinch of Blues and they sound better than ever.

Go out and support the band cause you don’t wanna miss this steaming life band and Mike’s Austin Powers meets James Brown dancing style.

You can find live clips and music on www.stoneriverboys.com

 

PS: Mike and Dave sorry no photoshopping the pictures as we like our
musicians like our music raw and real.

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