FEATURE
The Tanya Piché Blues Band will be releasing their debut
album this summer, packed with their own unique style
of Howlin’ Wolf Woman Blues. Our Country Music
Editor, Kelly Andrews, caught up with Tanya Piché
(singer/'the boss'), Nick 'Smurf' Sherreard (bass) and
David Warne (man of many guitars) towards the end of
recording to chat about the band’s rise so far, their
influences and what’s in store for the band.
Tell us how you all met.
TP: I’d been rehearsing with a view to putting a blues band
together with Peter ‘Panic’ North, somebody I’d worked with
in the past. About 3 weeks before our first gig, he left the
band because he was writing a novel.
NS: That kind of made me main guy! I suggested David as I
knew him from local jams and he was a miracle. We
put together a two-hour set and played our first gig with a
stand in drummer all within about 3 weeks.
DW: After that, they asked me to join them permanently,
which was awesome!
NS: I've never been in a band that got it together so fast. It
was a rollercoaster and we did a lot of growing up in public,
but that's how Tanya is, she's very proactive and really gets
stuff moving.
TP: So that’s how it was all born, we never looked back
really. We've been together 2 years on my birthday, which is
Smurf's birthday as well, 26th March. We gave him the job
on our birthdays! With James Diggins, our drummer, he just
sort of fell in with us, there was never an official audition.
We just ended up playing with him because he likes to just
get out there and play.
Tell us about your journeys as individual musicians up to
this point.
TP: In my early 20’s I was in a reggae band in Northampton
that I’d formed with my husband Daryl Greenfield and his
twin brother Carl. Daryl played bass and Carl played
keyboards, we found a couple of guitarists and started
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