I have an obsession with Southern Rock. I have only told very close friends about this, as admitting to rocking out to some Foghat gets you no RAB points. (That’s Rockabilly points to you squares)
Southern Rock gets a bad rap because some people associate it with the mouth-breathing, red-neck good-ole-boys that blast it outta their tape decks. For me, it takes me back to when I was growing up in the early 70s in Southwestern PA. When coolness was defined by my sister’s full length embroidered jean jacket and my brother’s long hair and aviator sunglasses. When a walking through the woods led you to bombed out lean-tos where kids smoked drugs and carved “Lynyrd Skynyrd” into tree trunks. Dude. And, all it takes is some sweet guitar pickin’ and the high hat to take me back to a carefree summer…
Admittedly, you can get sick of the oldies station and their usual rotation of Southern Rock. There really aren’t any contemporary bands playing in the style of our Dixie brethren. And, then, like the glint of sunshine off an Old English pull-tab, enter Good Man Down.
I caught up with bass player Kevin Baldes after their set at the Hootenanny:
You guys have that great Southern rock sound…where does that come from? KB: Bein’ old…We all grew up in the 70s, in different areas of the country. And we had all “done” the “rock-n-roll thing”. We wanted a change. We wanted to challenge ourselves. We wanted to dig deep into our influences and the sounds we grew up with and I think that’s how we ended up with Good Man Down. So our next step was putting on shows and getting people into the music. It hasn’t been hard though. People always seem to be into what we’ve been playing.
Now it’s hard to say that you produce Southern Rock from California. How do you keep your sound legit? KB:Well we all grew up elsewhere: Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and California. And, we are from where we are. Every so often you’ll get a band that comes from where ever with a sound that makes people say, “Holy shit! How did they do that?!” Like Nirvana coming out of Seattle. It wasn’t even on the map at that point. So, we just try to keep that in mind. Not that we want to become the next Nirvana, but…we’re all in our late 30s and we’re just playing what we love. We’re not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, if you dig Good Man Down, here we are, bro. Come and check us out.
So where will you be playing in the future? KB:August 6 with Pat Green at the House of Blue Anaheim, and we’re playing with Jimmy Van Zant in San Diego sometime soon.
So, for all of you folks out there with butt-duster moustaches wearing your ironic truckers hats and graphic Ts, perhaps you need to be schooled on the soul of it all. On what’s behind all that window-dressing. Rev up the Trans Am, and head out to see Good Man Down.
Good Man Down are:
Kevin Baldes- bass, backing vocals
Steve Garvy- lead guitar, backing vocals
Dennis Hill- Lead vocals, guitar
Kyle Homme- guitar, backing vocals
Kenny Livingston- drums, backing vocals
