"Con Alma de Blues Magazine" Nº7 English Edition Con Alma de Blues Magazine Nº7 /English Edition | Page 21

GZ:Which were your influences?
Jeff Schoerdl: We have a very wide variety of
influences and are fans of so many great artists—
from traditional blues artists like B.B. King, Buddy
Guy, Freddie King, Howlin Wolf, Robert Cray,
and Fabulous Thunderbirds to lots of jazz artists,
rock artists like Pat Travers and Eric Clapton, fu-
sion musicians and much more.
GZ:What's the impact of the music
and the soul and blues culture on the
racial, politics and social cultural
context?
Jeff Taylor: Back in the day, blues was the mu-
sic of African American musicians. But a lot of
musicians got hooked on the sound and many
musicians adopted the blues sound and style. The
audiences were much slower to diversify. Now of
course the audiences of contemporary blues are
very diverse. Blues is the music of story tellers and
the interpretation of the human condition, so a lot
of audience members find it easy to connect with
the blues. The stories the blues tell cross all social
classes and cultural contexts bringing a common
voice to the human journey.
GZ:What kind of audiences follows
the band?
Jeff Taylor: That’s the really cool part about our
band. Our audiences represent a full range of hu-
manity. We have deeply committed blues fans that
travel around the country attending blues festivals
that make a point of coming to see us. And, we
have fans we picked up in the clubs we played.
They came expecting a cover band and became
followers. The age range of our fans is really quite
large too. A lot of young school age kids come
to festival gigs because they have heard Jeff play
his guitar or Mark play the bass and they want to
see them play in person. They want to talk to the
band afterwards to hear how they can become bet-
ter players. Then there are the old timers who have
followed the blues for decades and enjoy relating
our music to something they used to hear or a
previous listening experience.