The Name Says It All
-Carolyn Heneghan

At seven members—3 New Orleanians, 4 Slidellians—plus the occasional extra jam members, the latest ska-reggae-rock group to hit the local scene has proven themselves to certainly be a big band, and with a fat and delicious sound to boot. A classic cluster of music aficionados, BF&D was born out of a common love for all things reggaeton, faced adversities both common and uncommon for up and coming bands, and powered through with a popular local weekly, a unique and growing fan base, and a new name to add to the diversity of our city’s rich musical heritage. I sat down with three of the band members before their regular Tuesday gig at Banks St. Bar to find out the story behind the venue’s latest weekly crowd-pleasers.

Where Y’at?: So how did your band come to be?
Seth Holcomb: Originally, Dustin and his brother Dan were gonna start a band together with Sean Barros and Daniel Ray, but Dan passed away in 2007, so it took a couple years for everything to start going again, and we just started recruiting people slowly.
Sean Barros: All the songs started acoustic. Me and Dustin got together, just two acoustics, and recorded a few tracks with GarageBand, and that was really the extent of it. We were gonna play a few shows like that, but it never really materialized, we were both really busy, school during the day, work at night. Then we got a djembe, and then Seth started playing guitar. Then we figured, well we already got two guitars, why don’t you [Seth] start playing bass?
Seth: Yeah, we were just three guitars and a djembe. [laughs]
Sean: So [Seth] borrowed my dad’s acoustic bass, and then D-Ray started played keys with us, and then once we had keys, it was like, “OK, well now I wanna play electric.” So that’s how it evolved.
Seth: Dustin had this quote in ANTIGRAVITY that I really liked about us being a “family band” and that’s how it’s always been and that’s how we always want it to be. So it was pretty much four guys that jam and then we went and looked for a drummer. We had Gus the djembe player, and we were just gonna use him instead of a drum set until we realized you can’t really do that, you kinda need rhythm. [laughs] And so we got Jeff the drummer, and then just recently we got Pat the trombone player, who was originally a fan of ours and a friend that I worked with at Reginelli’s, so we asked him to play. And that’s kinda how it started.
WYAT: What have some of your first shows been like?
Dustin Walkowski: It started out just getting together and jamming on acoustic covers. Then we decided we wanted to play shows. Our first show, we just played all acoustic guitars, we technically didn’t even have a bass. We had three guitars, djembe, and keyboard and opened up for Fatter Than Albert on their last show before their hiatus at the Big Top. We were like a delinquent band then. [laughs] But I had more fun at the second show we played at the Big Top, the Block Party. We only got to play 4 songs because there were serious technical difficulties, and it happened, of course, right during our timeslot. We put the PA speakers in a bad spot, and some kids skanked into them right before the FTA set. That’s the Irish luck. [laughs]
WYAT: How did your sound develop into what it is today?
Seth: Honestly, Dustin is one of the best songwriters I’ve ever met. About 99% of the songs he writes lyrically and I guess rhythmically. He kinda sets the pace and then everyone brings their own talent to the table. It’s developed itself really, I feel like we didn’t pick anything specific. It’s pretty wide-range, not too wide, but we play some heavy stuff, some reggae stuff.
WYAT: Who would you say has influenced your sound?
Seth: RX Bandits, State Radio, and I guess whoever influences those bands, Sublime, Bob Marley, etc.
Sean: Obvious influences: RX Bandits, reggae and our own local ska heroes, you know, Samurai Deli, Fatter Than Albert, Flaming Tsunamis. Dustin and D-Ray both came from Samurai Deli.
WYAT: Can we look forward to any BF&D recordings in the near future?
Sean: We just recorded 8 songs with a friend of ours from Slidell who recorded Samurai Deli and other Slidell bands back in the day. But then he moved to North Dakota right after we finished, we literally recorded the day before he officially moved. We finally got the first mix done, and we’re trying to get that together. But no one has a good stereo, we’ve been listening to it on car stereos.
Seth: We gotta have the time to tell him what we want to fix.
Sean: It kinda sucks not being a part of the mixing process.
Seth: Yeah, just cause he’s so far away…
Dustin: It’s cross-country mixing!
Seth: And like I said, I started playing bass for this band. While we were recording, I was learning how to play, so there are songs on this recording where now I play something completely different. And then with Pat on the trombone, when he recorded with us, that’s literally how he learned those songs, from the recording session.
WYAT: An ETA on the finished product?
Dustin: We’d like to see it before the end of the year. December?
WYAT: Do you have any other plans for the future?
Seth: We’ll be playing here at Banks every other week. We’ve really had more shows than practices by a long shot, so we’re just trying to practice a lot more. Once we get the album out, we’re definitely gonna be pushing that a lot more.
Dustin: We’ve got a lot of new material too.
WYAT: Finally, after the rate of expansion from the past year, is BF&D planning to get any bigger?
Seth: We’ve pretty much settled, but people jam with us all the time, at shows even, usually adding to the horn line. But I’m sure if we found the perfect fit with someone else, we’d probably add them.
Getting bigger is a maybe, getting fatter is a personal choice, but there’s no question these guys make some delicious music.
Reggae Night Every Tuesday 
Feat. Big, Fat & Delicious + The Rhythm Cruisers, 10 p.m.
Banks St. Bar & Grill, 4401 Banks St.
http://www.myspace.com/bigfatdeliciousnola