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ROCKHOUND
By Kendall Polidori
After a weather delay, Texas-based blues rockers Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown gave Welcome To Rockville fans a reason to get back to the stage
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown played the Welcome To Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida.
The Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin were awesome— but rock lives on. Why not break out of the classic rock cocoon and give new rock a chance? Rockhound is here to help. Think of it as a bridge from 1967 to today and beyond. 42
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PHOTOGRAPH: TYLER STEVE CARLOS
Best at Rockville
yler Bryant is fascinated by the way his fingers can graze the strings of a guitar. He picked one up when he was six and since then, a guitar has been like an additional limb. Playing is second nature. On stage, he gets lost in the craft, effortlessly strumming a pink resonator or Stratocaster, eyes closed, head leaning back with his chin pointing skyward. Bryant and his band—Caleb Crosby, drums; Graham Whitford, guitar; and Ryan Fitzgerald, bass—quickly garnered attention in the blues rock sphere after forming in 2009 and going on tour with the likes of Aerosmith, B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Guns N’ Roses. Their sound holds a distinct southern rock twang with brassy, echoing guitar work. Think of them as a mash-up of The Black Crowes, Sound Garden, Humble Pie, Bad Company, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Muddy Waters, and The Rolling Stones. “We like to follow that voice that feels inspiring to us, and we’ve cultivated a fanbase that knows we are going to be authentically ourselves,” Bryant said before their set at the May music festival, Welcome To Rockville, in Daytona Beach, Florida. They strive to create an authentic experience for their fans, with each live show different from the one before. For them, it’s all about what feels right in the moment, Crosby noted. The Shakedown likes to take a DIY approach. They’ve built the band’s structure brick by brick, and Bryant recalls shows in the early years with six people in attendance. Their goal for the next one was to have 12 people in the audience, but it just kept getting better each time. “These are people that are like us,” Bryant said. “They listen to the same type of music that we do. We almost have a friendship with our fans. Something we have consistently done over our career is to try and have less of an ego.” They released their past four studio albums through labels Carved Records, Republic Records and Snakefarm Records but have recently created their own label: Rattlesnake Records. Bryant said the band never found anyone who was willing to work as hard as they were, so they decided to keep recording in-house. He added that many rock fans want to support artists directly but don’t realize they are often supporting the label more than the artists. “The models have been changing for years, but especially in 2020, we realized that we were able to move forward on our own,” Whitford said. “The music industry has shifted dramatically, and most artists are making that change.” Their next album, slated for fall, will be the first under their new label. There might be some hiccups along the way, but
Luckbox | July 2022
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6/17/22 10:02 AM
