JEB: Not country.
MK: No country, and in fact Neil will say
his 15 year-old self would probably punch
himself for playing the music that we cur-
rently play, but they all love it. I bring the
country to it and it was just this collabora-
tion that started as we are just kind of jam-
ming to put something awesome togeth-
er. We started practicing on Sunday after-
noons and we still practice every Sunday
afternoon. We have been doing that now
for 3 years. We have really great energy
and rock mixed with my country. I really dig
the high energy rock country!
JEB: You still do stuff like Garth Brooks?
MK: Yes, we do a couple of Garth Brooks,
big hits like Friends in Low Places and the
crowd goes wild.
JEB: I didn’t know if you ventured more
into the folksy kind of side.
MK: No, no. We venture more into the
Guns & Roses and AC/DC side with mod-
ern country music that you might hear on
the radio, like Miranda Lambert, Keith Ur-
ban and some of those big names now in
country music. We do all of that. I love Mi-
randa, so we do a lot of Miranda Lambert,
but like I said, it has got a different spin be-
cause it is so much rockier….
JEB: Because those guys know how to
jam; they know how to rock. I did prepare
for the interview and went on the Face-
book page for Low Country Funk and there
were not a lot of live videos, but some of
your vocals in practices reminded me of Iris
Dement, a more folksy kind of country.
MK: And that’s because you have seen
the acoustics. Right, what you would see
online is a couple of acoustic sets. It would
appear more folky, especially with my
voice. Our live show though is not really
online, so it’s sort of something that you
have to experience to come ou t. We are
playing this Friday night at CJ’s in Rutland
and CJ’s is one of our favorite places to
play. The crowd is awesome.
once in a while people were like, oh, what’s
this band about, but over the last year, I
would say we are playing out at a gig at
least once a month, maybe twice a month
for shows, and it is really cool. It’s a lo-
cal audience, but we play at all the plac-
es downtown here and we have recently
played up at the Outback in Killington a
couple of times. We are getting booked for
private parties now and weddings. Wed-
dings….I am really excited about that. That
is going to be a good time!
JEB: So are you going to confess --when
we just got our survey results from the last
meeting we had someone suggest that we
have a battle of the bands, was that you?
MK: Yup! I love it. Yeah. I had this con-
versation with Mike Kennedy and he men-
tioned a battle of the bands and I said ‘find
me another band, let’s do it!’
JEB: We tried that before, we tried to do
a fundraiser. Matt Valerio is in a band and
we were trying to get people in different
bands but I don’t think it worked very well
at the time. We have been talking about
trying it again. I know Mike Donofrio is in a
band and Andrew Minitsky…
MK: I knew he was a musician.
JEB: We don’t necessarily do fundraisers
unless it’s for the Vermont Bar Foundation,
not necessarily for us, but you wouldn’t be
opposed to playing at one of our meet-
ings?
MK: I would love it. I think that is fantas-
tic! It will be loud.
JEB: It will be loud. So you’d suggest
that as a warning. People keep suggesting
that they want social functions, but then
we have them and people don’t register
for them.
MK: People don’t show up. I know.
JEB: Maybe a battle of the bands is the
answer!
MK: I feel like music will help draw some
of our hermits out of their shells.
JEB: It’s a battle, a competition.
MK: We are lawyers; of course we like
the competition!
JEB: CJ’s suds.
MK: You got it, good old fashioned CJ’s
suds. That’s right. It has been CJ’s as long
as I can remember. JEB: I’m sure there are others out there.
I suppose a lot of people don’t know that
you are in a band.
MK: And that is really surprising to me
at this point. It feels like 2 of my worlds are
colliding, in some ways.
JEB: That’s funny. How often do you
have gigs?
MK: We have been getting booked for
gigs much more frequently. In the first cou-
ple of years, it was really just practice and JEB: Yeah.
MK: I mean your professional life and
your law practice and everything you are
trying to accomplish career-wise is on one
track and then you have your….
www.vtbar.org
Blanchette who is our lead guitar player;
Nick Vittone is our bass player, and Blake
Gowan, who is our drummer. These guys
have more musical history and experience
than I do, and they brought more of a rock/
alternative side to our band.
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SUMMER 2017
9