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Cowboy Mouth, Dash Rip Rock to liven up Houma’s City Club
“If the Neville Brothers and The Clash had a baby, it would be Cowboy Mouth.”
So says Cowboy Mouth’s front man and founder, drummer Fred LeBlanc.
Known globally for their off-the-wall raucous performances, the band’s live shows are the stuff tall tales are made from. “On a bad night, they’ll tear the roof off the joint and on a good night, they’ll save your soul,” Cake Magazine once wrote.
The legendary New Orleans rock band joins fellow icons Dash Rip Rock onstage at the City Club of Houma Friday, July 23. The doors open at 8 p.m., and the bands take the stage at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15 to $25.
Cowboy Mouth’s most recent tour features songs from the group’s 11th CD, “Fearless.” Released last September, the Valley Entertainment labeled work has seen “Kelly Rippa,” “Maureen” and “Tell the Girl Ur Sorry” earning airplay on New Orleans-based alternative radio stations.
“I Believe,” Cowboy Mouth’s homage to the Super Bowl-champion New Orleans Saints, captured national attention when the video reached the TV cycle during playoff highlight reels.
One of the Big Easy’s hardest working rock-popping bands, Cowboy Mouth is on the road performing more than 200 nights of the year. They’ve opened for Hootie and the Blowfish, BareNaked Ladies, Sister Hazel and Better Than Ezra.
Members include LeBlanc, who is a former member of Dash Rip Rock, is joined by John Thomas Griffith on guitar and vocals; Regina Zernay on bass guitar and vocals; and Jonathan Pretus on rhythm guitar and vocals.
Griffith hails from the Red Rockers; Zernay from Los-Angeles-based Mechant; and Pretus, The Garden District and a Weezer cover band called “Tweezer.”
“We do our best to make it an experience for the audience,” LeBlanc told The (Chicago) Beacon in a one-on-one interview. “We want to take them on a journey where it’s not just a matter of entertaining them. We want them to feel what we’re feeling on stage, get them to sing and dance and act like 5-year olds. To just forget their troubles.
Dash Rip Rock – founder Bill Davis on guitars, drummer Eric Padua and bassist Patrick Johnson – paved the way in the 1980s as an underground New Orleans party rock band.
Davis said the band got its start playing The Boot, Muddy Waters and Tipitinas and attracting crowds who’d heard their tunes on W-TUL, Tulane University’s alternative radio station.
Deadeye Dick, Better Than Ezra and upstart Cowboy Mouth were also starting out then, Dash’s Davis said.
“We were living in the projects, and had that ‘don’t care, living poor’ attitude,” he said in a web interview.
Dash Rip Rock’s first two releases had more of an REM flavor, Davis admits. “…we just sort of degenerated into a party rock band,” he said. “That was so much fun and enjoyable. It’s great fun and satisfying.
“We’ve just evolved into a weird punk-rock thing,” Davis continued. “We had so much fun and we just never wanted to leave the bars so we became a party rock band.”
The two bands – both known for their wild, energetic, contagious live shows – will match licks in Downtown Houma at City Club. If crunchy guitars, wicked fun and rockabilly punk blues are you’re thing, it’s the best ticket in town this July.
Guitarist John Thomas Griffith, drummer and lead singer Fred LeBlanc, bassist Regina Zemay and rhythm guitarist Jonathan “JP” Pretus roll in to Houma’s City Club this month. The tour’s playlist includes songs off their latest release, “Fearless.”
