charged:

A year later, they landed their first gig at Enchilada’s.

Juggling a family, fulltime career and rock band was time-consuming for most of the guys, so Sales sought out replacements. The lawyer recruited friends from the bar association, and now the seven-piece band includes Kent Hofmeister, Bryan Dunklin and Christina Melton, along with David Michnoff, Brad Young and Steve Rickey. Band members say they’re divided into two groups: members of the bar and guys who go to bars.

The band’s practice space has since relocated to Sales’ converted garage. The room is more sophisticated than that of a teen garage band, although it does have just as many posters. Images of Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and John Lennon line the walls. So does “Almost Famous” and Woodstock.

At a summer practice, weeks before their 20th anniversary show, songs like The Beatles’ “Birthday” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” blare from Sales’ garage. Michnoff, the drummer, explains one of the band’s few rules: “We don’t do anything past early MTV.”

The Catdaddies have played at the arboretum and the Granada Theater. Every year they take their talents to Law Jam, a fundraiser for the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program. And one of their favorite shows was at the Christina Melton Crain Unit, a women’s prison named after their bandmate.

“The music is in our DNA,” Melton says. “It’s what makes us tick.”