Big Daddy Love

Our night opening for Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

Big Daddy Love — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:29:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

This is the story of when we opened for Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band in Raleigh, NC. At the end some of our closest friends have written about their experience of this night. Enjoy...

Saturday morning, a week before the show, we were waking up at Scott and Karen's house and Scott got a call from his friend David White, the venue owner at Brackett Cedar Park where we were scheduled to play the following weekend. David told Scott that he got a call from our agent about the possibility of us having to postpone our show for a chance to open for Bob Seger in Raleigh. Our booking agent, Chris, has a ton of experience and doesn't throw out rumors like that unless there's some solid meat behind it, so we at least knew there was a good chance that this was real. But even then, until something has a contract behind it things can change in a heartbeat, so you learn to not get too excited. At the same time, wow, a full arena show! A chance to experience the "Big Time" for just a few brief moments. These are the moments that we spend years working up to. Of course there were the obligatory high-brow grumblings of how commercial Seger is. Musicians never miss an easy opportunity to establish their place on the high and mighty, yet illogical, real music vs commercial music spectrum. It's a nearly automatic reflex conditioned by decades in the non-commercial world of folky Americana. All that aside, a chance to play for 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 people? Oh yeah! (Little did we know the arena would be full when we started with upwards of 10,000 people!)

As Monday morning rolled around we got the word that the opportunity was there. Seger management heard us and really liked our sound and wanted to confirm it fast. Our manager, Tom, called me and started out with, "We have a big decision to make." He knew the Brackett Ceder Park gig was a hometown gig for Scott and people had been making plans to camp, so he was approaching it with utmost diplomacy. I just started laughing and said, "There's no decision here, of course we'll do it!" These are the opportunities that we've worked so hard for in the last few years, and they come few and far between, so you jump when they appear.

The week leading up to the show we were all asked the same question a hundred times, "Are you excited?" I started thinking about this, and I realized it is both a yes and no answer. Of course we're excited: this is huge! But at the same time, all of us have played music for so long now that we've really learned to take things day by day, and we were concentrating much more on the Thursday show at the Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh, and the Friday show at High Rock Outfitters in Lexington. Both venues are home-away-from-home places for us. I'm sure we spent much less mental energy on the Seger show than anyone would believe. Big shows like this can remain just an idea in the distant future until you're about to walk onstage in front of all those people, and then everything just hits you at once. The beauty of this experienced mindset paid off as we played two of the best shows of our career both at the Berkeley and at High Rock that weekend. You've heard of sports teams losing an easy game because they're "looking ahead to the next week." Well, we've found a group that plays their hearts out whether it's 100 people or 10,000 people.

They asked us to get to the arena at 3:00 pm on Saturday, so we could play the age-old game of "hurry up and wait." As we were driving in, someone commented how different it is to be able to find the venue by just following the signs for it off the interstate -- sometimes it's the little things. A road crew of about 10 people walked out to help us carry all our gear into the cavernous opening at the back of the arena - always an odd feeling when we're so used to carrying everything ourselves. When they walked out and asked if they could help, we almost found ourselves giving the perfunctory "Naw, we got it." But then we realized it's their job, and they're really good at it.

We waited for a few hours and got the word that we can set ourselves up and sound check. It is always such a pleasure working with sound crews of this caliber, people who know what they're doing and take pride in doing their job perfectly.

There is such a combination of emotions running through you as you walk onto a stage in front of a crowd of that size. Nervousness is obviously one of the strongest, which is just plain human nature. Excitement is there too. You think about everything you've done to get to this point, like all those Monday nights we played at J Butler's in Clemmons, NC, packed into a tiny corner and having to share space with guys addicted to the digital slot machine. You think about the future and wonder if this experience will happen again, or maybe with a little luck and hard work if this could be a normal thing. The songs you've played 1000 times seem almost new to you -- as they should. You look out into the 15 rows of people that you can see, noticing all the brand new faces, and wonder what they are thinking. But mostly you just enjoy the music, because at the end of the day that's the one thing that drives us, to play music that we really love....and maybe, just maybe, make a good living doing it.

Cass Copsey killin' it on trumpet!

Our direct emotional support team -- Beth, Christy, Karen, Megan

This really happened.

A couple of us did not expect them to turn off the house lights for our set. A lot of times they will save that dramatic entrance effect for the headliner, but what do you know, they cut the lights and the stage was the only thing lit up. As the crowd let out a louder cheer than we deserved I thought to myself, "Oh my God, they think we're Seger! I hope they don't boo us when they realize we aren't!" I hustled up to Scott and told him, "They think we're Seger. You should probably tell them we aren't." Try and head off those boos before they happened. Scott nailed it with his engaging, upbeat stage presence that crowds just love.

I think that we were all feeling pretty good about our set, fluctuating between "I think they like us" to "At least they're not booing." At the end of Sweet Child when the crowd jumped to their feet and gave a huge arena style ROAR, we took a big collective breath of air and knew that we were doing pretty good. We launched right into Sweet Water with our friend and old sound engineer, Cass Copsey, blowing the hell out of a trumpet, and again, another standing ovation as we walked off-stage. It felt good, really good. All the practice, all the shows where nobody shows up, all the rough days traveling, all of that got us here, and it felt great.

I want to say one last thing before I let some of our closest friends and family describe their experience on this night -- Seger was really amazing. He's in his upper 60's and his voice is as strong as ever. All of the glowing reviews of his shows this year are well deserved. Even his song, "Turn The Page," -- the song that's been overplayed on classic rock stations to the point of exhaustion -- sounded fresh, and I found myself caught up with it. Any performer that can play songs that are decades old and give them a fresh new life, as if they were just written, is someone that deserves much artistic respect. I expected to enjoy his show, but I had no idea just how much I would. Seger sets the bar for an amazing career, and I'm glad he's still going strong.

We were lucky to have some of our closest friends and family join us here. A few of them have sent me paragraphs describing their experience. You have to remember, the 5 of us have been at every BDL show together for the last year, but we've never seen a BDL show. We have no idea what it is like from the audience standpoint. So here's some audience perspective from people who've seen us every step of the way.

Jennifer Swenk:
I was excited all week about BDL playing at PNC arena. As the days and hours clicked by my excitement (and anxiety) grew. I felt so nervous for them, getting on stage and playing in front of 10,000 people! Not worried that it wouldn't go good, because I knew they would bring it, but just that nervous anxious feeling you get when something big is about to happen. Sitting with my friends we were all a flutter, talking to each other, making BDL connections around us, and waiting, waiting for the clock to finally strike 8. When the lights went down and they took the stage it was surreal. Watching our boys walk around the bend and climb the stairs was magical. The next 35 minutes went by in a blur. I kept looking at the crowd and watching more and more heads bop up and down and knees dancing in the seats. I watched as our boys played their hearts out, they left nothing on the table, they were all in. The energy emitting from the stage didn't take long to ignite the crowd; and by the time Sweet Child of Mine rolled around, the crowd was hooked! We were all teared up and filled with immense pride watching it unfold. It was amazing, one of the most special things I've experienced in my life and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

Jeremy Bell:
I was fortunate enough to join BDL last Saturday as part of the crew, so I had all access to the entire arena from 3pm until after midnight. I started my day helping the guys unload the van, which didn't take very long because the arena had plenty of staff to make this happen with ease. After that I went into their dressing room where it was a typical green room scene, snacks on the table, Swenk picking the banjo, Ashley smiling and talking to whoever came through the door, Scott Moss being his normal cheerful self, Joey with his clever one liners, taking it all in without even a hit of nervousness, and Scotty Lewis keeping it all together and keeping the vibe in the room nice and calm. I was probably the most nervous of everybody in there, and all I had to do was listen to the music that was getting ready to happen.

At 7:55 I was standing on the side of the stage with all 5 of them, I could sense a little nervousness, a little anxiety, and a ton of excitement. At 7:59 iPhone time, the lights in the arena went down and the crowd erupted with applause, I'm sure thinking "Bob Seger is coming on early!" The five guys I had been hanging out with all day walked up on that stage like they owned it and took their respective positions like they've done hundreds of times before. The crowd was still cheering when Scott Moss said "We're Big Daddy Love from Winston Salem North Carolina and all I can say is wooooooooooow!" From that point on the 19,731 [editor's note: closer to 10,000] people in there were hooked. They opened with Family and the crowd was still very much into them, then Swenk started playing... the place went nuts again when he started playing that banjo, and they all knew they were in for a treat.

I walked from the side of the stage, through the metal barricade and into the floor seating area to go find a seat, instead I found a beer vendor. I got in the very short line behind 3 women, all dancing like they knew this song. Less than a minute later, and $8 poorer I was on my way again. I decided early in the day that I was going to watch the BDL set from a seat as far away from the stage as I could get because I never get to experience them like that. I found a seat in the very last row straight in front of the stage just below the luxury boxes. From Scotty's kick drum shaking my shirt to Joey's smoking guitar, this was by far the best seat in the house!

I sat there in awe and truly couldn't believe what I was seeing how comfortable they all looked, I could see them very well on the 2 jumbo screens on each side of the stage. From song to song, all 5 of them owned that crowd and it was very obvious that they were doing what they were born to do. After every song the crowd cheered like they were seeing the band they had waited all day to see all day, and wanted more.

Scott Moss, Brian Swenk, Joey Reccio, Ashley Sutton, and Scotty Lewis are by far some of the best people I have met in this crazy North Carolina music scene and they deserve the chance to play in front a crowd that size. I hope that this opens up many doors for them. They certainly deserve it.

Teri Dosher:
While sitting at the PNC Arena Saturday night, waiting for BIG DADDY LOVE to take the stage, I thought back to December 2009. We had made a road trip to Winston Salem to see Yarn play at the Garage, after the show I met Ashley Sutton and he said I should check out his new band BIG DADDY LOVE. Rhythm and Roots in Bristol the next September was my first chance, I was sucked in right away, not just because the music was great, but you could tell they loved what they did, and they loved the people who loved them, they had what I call really good karma. I was hooked, I’ve traveled many miles, and visited many venues to see them play live, sang their praises far and wide, and I have made so many wonderful friends along the way. The guys in BIG DADDY LOVE are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and their fans are as well. I knew one day, if the world was right, they would get the attention they deserve. So Saturday night, when they took the stage in front of all of those people, I could feel magic was about to happen, and when they wrapped up “Sweet Child of Mine” (which also happened to be the song that let me know “everything was gonna be alright” the first time I heard Scott Moss take the lead) and 10,000 stood up and cheered, it brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautiful night for all of those who have loved BIG DADDY LOVE from the very beginning and for all of those who got a chance to finally hear them for the first time.

Kelly Farmer:
As our group walked down to our seats, it was exciting to see that most of the arena had already been filled with fans. They were going to be glad they got there early. Any similarities to other opening bands stopped when Joey hit the slide for the first time. I laughed out loud as I watched people snap to attention. The BDL “hook” had been set. Conversations were stopped. As BDL rolled through the set list, phones came out, people started getting on their feet, and the dancing began. After a 35 minute set and two standing ovations, the new fans were high-fiving, fist-bumping, and smiling that "BDL" smile. Even though they came for Seger, I knew the Love Bus was going to be a lot more crowded on the way home.

Camille Hall:
Words cannot begin to describe the emotions I felt as BDL walked onto the stage Saturday night in Raleigh. It was if I was walking onto the stage with them. My heart was racing, my hands were sweating, my knees were shaking and tears were falling from my eyes. I have believed in the talent found in this band for four years so it was like I was living a dream also. They did an incredible job. Hearing them with that size and quality of sound equipment was like hearing them for the first time. Their performance was so spot on that an audience of thousands who had never heard them play before came to their feet. I didn't get much sleep Saturday night and my over three hour drive home Sunday was through a down pour. I walked into work Monday morning with swollen red eyes and "dead" on my feet. When my co-workers asked me if it was worth it my only response to them could be a very enthusiastic, "HELL YEAH it was worth it!"

Jenny Viars (or Dancing Lemur):
When I found out this opening slot for Seger was happening, my second question to Brian was "And do I get to go and shoot??" (right after "ARE YOU MAKING THAT UP??"). They were nice enough to try to get me a press pass for Seger's set too, but I wasn't even vaguely disappointed when the answer was no. I wasn't going to see Seger; I was going to see BDL hit that big stage. I spent the whole week leading up to it bursting with pride and excitement; I could not shut up about it to anyone who would listen. Once we got there Saturday afternoon, I found out that I'd be able to shoot on stage as long as the band was cool with it (hint: THEY WERE) and that unlike the press photographers, I'd have the run of the arena during BDL's set. I started out on stage left side at the start of the set; I started grinning as soon as they hit the first note and the crowd gave the kind of roar you can only hear in an arena. I made my way around the back of crowd, stopping here and there to shoot. I danced in the aisles and sang along, and I kept on smiling at the people who looked at me oddly from their seats. I wiped tears away, too. I finally made it onto the back of the stage and climbed all the way up onto a top tier drum riser, which gave me (in my opinion) the best view in the whole place: the band, the lights, and the HUGE crowd. These guys work SO HARD, and it was more than right to see them tearing it up for a whole crowd of brand new appreciative fans. The second best part of the night happened while Seger played, and we all went up to the first level balcony and met up with several BDL fans. We hugged, celebrated, listened to a music icon, and basked in pride and happiness for this band and the family we've all formed. I kept noticing strangers approach BDL members and compliment them on their set. Get used to it, guys...this will be the norm soon enough!

Thanks everyone for sticking with us through this crazy journey! See ya soon!

Brian and BDL

BDL Winter Tour, Mid-West and Rockies!

Big Daddy Love — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Hello All You Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

We are a little over halfway through our winter tour through the Midwest and Rocky Mountains. We've driven through 2 blizzards and made some really great friends along the way. Here's a little glimpse.

We started off by hitting some of our new favorite places in Ohio: Dayton and Columbus. We've started seeing some familiar faces at these shows and they are bringing friends.

Our first show in Chicago was great as well, as we had some family from Possum Holler show up! Todd Pettit and Lynn Bryan were in Chi-town visiting friends so they brought a big group to our show.

Possum Holler Rules!!

One of our favorite places to play is in Evansville, Indiana, and it is the perfect example of a passionate venue owner who is able to create a music scene from scratch. Amy Rivers-Word has done such a great job in building a venue that bands just love to play!

Any venue that has a skeleton riding a deer head with bras hanging from its knees is going to be awesome!

Lamasco Bar and Grill

As we were heading out west a car pulls up to us at 70mph on the highway and a guy just hands a Grateful Dead CD out the window to Ashley! We have no idea why this happened! But in a strange occurrence of synchronicity this album was recorded in 1970 on the exact day as he handed it to us! Did he know this? We'll never know.

Scott gets some great shots from the van

We miss our doggies and families when we travel, so we find some foster doggies to give some lovin' to.

We had a special guest for part of the trip, the famous Mrs. Karen Moss! She's super badass and works security for us when we need. She'll straight knock a sucka out!

A van full of MOSS!

As we were leaving Wichita KS we experienced our first blizzard, as we basically tried to drive out of it all day. I heard Wichita got as much as 2 feet of snow. We made it to Aurora CO before we just had to pull over and get a hotel room.

The next morning the roads were clear and we drove to Nederland CO. Most people know this cool little mountain town as an early home base for the great jamgrass band Leftover Salmon.

We love to find local coffee shops to hang out in, and this one was one of the best. It was 3 caboose cars all connected.

Nederland, CO

We had a really great show at the Pioneer Inn (the locals refer to it as the "P.I.") We've always had a feeling that CO people would dig the BDL sound, and we were right. The crowd was amazing and boogied their tushes off, and a super nice couple invited us back to their house for the evening, which was really great since hotels there were very expensive.

Here's a shot of new BDL family, The Colorado Chapter.

Nederland has a famous "Carousel of Happiness" run by a guy named "Bigfoot." Wook had to try it out. We think it works.

Happy Wook!

So let me set this scene up for you. We met some great people, but one of the funniest was a guy named Bud. He found this kids toy that borders on hilarious and freaky. Here it is:

So Bud decided that he would take this toy and wear it around his neck to the Further Concert (surviving members of the Grateful Dead) that night in Denver, and only communicate to people with his new toy. Nederland people rock!

We headed to Keystone and played at a famous venue called The Goat. Every now and then we get put up in super nice places and this was one of those times! Here's a view from our hotel.

We left Keystone for our 7 hour drive to Santa Fe NM. This has to be one of the most amazing drives we've ever had in the 3.5 years of the band, for the sheer drastic change of the scenery. We went from snow covered peaks to prairies to desert. It was unbelievable. Here's a few shots.

As most of you probably read on our FB post, our Santa Fe show was really amazing. A friend described Santa Fe as "A little pocket of coolness, much like Austin, Boone,and Asheville." We totally agree. We also got a taste of the power of radio, as people knew who we were already.

We left Santa Fe yesterday and drove straight into a blizzard. I guess you might call us lucky, but Chicago experienced its coldest temps of the year when we were there, and Denver just got its biggest snowfall! It's how we roll.

After we got the van into a hotel parking lot--barely--we walked about half a mile in the blizzard to a Chili's that was still open and found out they had a two-for-one beer special. Small consolation prize for a rough day.

Thanks for hanging with us. To all our friends, old and new, we hope to see ya soon!

Brian and BDL.

Upcoming shows (visit our Facebook events page for show details):

2/28 Durango, CO The Summit
3/1 Manitou Springs, CO Ancient Mariner
3/2 Denver, CO Quixote's True Blue
3/8 Wilmington, NC The Whiskey
3/9 Beaufort, NC The Backstreet Pub
3/14 Raleigh, NC Berkeley Cafe
3/15 High Point, NC Blue Bourbon Jack's
3/16 Dobson, NC The Coffee Bean
3/17 Boone, NC Murphy's

2012 – Year in Review for BDL

Big Daddy Love — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:32:00 +0000

Right before our main stage set at Floyd Fest.

Hello all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios!

What a year huh?!

Our transition of gaining Scott Moss and Scotty Lewis is definitely the biggest story for us, and what a ride it has been. I can't tell you how many conversations we've all had with long time fans who told us they were at first "skeptical," but after hearing the new line-up were amazingly surprised at how good the music sounds, and, of course, that is what drives us the most. So to everyone that came up and told us this, we want to give a huge "Thank You!"

Here's the initial announcement that introduced everyone to Scott Moss.

A month later we were joined by the dreadlocked powerhouse of a drummer, Mr. Scotty Lewis, from Richmond, VA, and we immediately took off to Colorado for an amazing tour. I had to write about one of the nights deep in the mountains of CO, and looking back I think it was my favorite night of the whole year. We are currently making plans to go back to CO in late February and hook back up with Jack Ten High, our friends from this story.

Scotty in his "happy place"

When we returned in June, we got to open up for a true musical legend, Mr. Willie Nelson! I tried to describe the experience here.

A huge part of our summer for the last few years has been the incredible FloydFest. Unfortunately we won't be there this year (I believe we might be back in CO during that month), but we can't wait to come back. Here are some of our favorite pictures of this year. It was here we learned that L Shape Lot were truly our "brothers from other mothers." We had so much fun sharing sets and talking smack about each other from the stage.

Our view!

Our great friends L Shape Lot!

BDL at Floyd Fest with Andrew Hendryx of Yarn

A great shot by our friend Roger Gupta at the Pink Floyd Stage

Another memorable festival was The Big What? hosted by our friends Big Something and Jeremy Bell in Prospect Holler, NC. We debuted our cover of the great song "Rift" by Phish at this festival. I wrote about the process of learning such a complicated song in this travel blog post.

This video starts at the last part of "Let it Grow" continues through "20 Acre Farm," and "Rebecca" -->"Up To You," and finally ends about halfway through "Circle Around the Sun."

We also had a blast at our Alice in Wonderland themed charity show at High Rock Outfitters in Lexington NC. In case you're wondering, Scott decided to be "Alice COOPER in Wonderland!" Pretty good twist on things.

Love Bus in Wonderland

And then we get to our November Ziggy's show! This was probably our favorite show of the year, along with the Willie show, of course. The Heritage and Big Something absolutely killed it during their sets, and we ended up getting some fantastic video and audio recordings that we are working to release this spring as a DVD. The video will feature some neat footage caught by a Go-Pro Camera that was attached to the headstock of the banjo and electric guitar for some up-close shots of furiously fast flying fingers. We can't wait to get this live album/DVD out.

With our friends from Big Something and The Heritage.

The saturation of music festivals through the summer months only means one thing...we need some killer wintertime festivals to look forward to. Our favorite venue owners, Chris Phelps and Brittany Wilson, have stepped up and started the NC Music and Arts Festival in a beautiful downtown theater in Lexington, NC. We had so much fun here.

NC Music and Arts Fest

We'd like to take a second and list our favorite albums of the year. We've been talking about doing this for some time now since we hear a lot of new music in our travels and some of it just really blows us away. Two bands that aren't listed but have to be mentioned are Possum Jenkins and Folk Soul Revival. We listen to their albums a lot while we are traveling.

Scott Moss - Shovels and Rope "O, Be Joyful"

Ashley Sutton - Lucas Nelson and Promise of the Real "Wasted"

Brian Swenk - Aaron Burdett "Breathing Underwater"

Joey Recchio - The Kevin Maines Band "American Hustle"

Scotty Lewis - Taylor Swift "Red"

In 2012 we started venturing up north, to places we've never been before such as Chicago, Burlington, VT, Massachusetts, New York, and surprisingly one of our favorite new states is Pennsylvania! Our manager, Tom Baggott, had been telling us that the hills and mountains of PA are very similar to where we were raised and the people there will really connect with our "Appalachian Rock." He was absolutely right. We also met another band that we were able to connect with, Miz. A great group of guys.

Through all the big festivals and shows we've experienced this year and were lucky enough to have documented by great photographers like Jenny Viars, Roger Gupta, and Milo Farineau, there were so many smaller shows that were just as much fun because the people there had amazing energy and loved the music. One in particular that will always stand out to us was playing the staff after-party in a large covered gazebo for the Camp Barefoot Music Festival. Everyone was exhausted and had just worked their butts off, but it was just one of those nights where the music got going and everyone caught a second wind and started boogying down. We had so much fun at that party, which shows that the big stages and lights and sound systems are nice, but what really matters is just playing music for people who love it.

So like I said before, "What a year, huh?" So much change along with so many amazing experiences that we never imagined would be possible. We'll be slam packed this coming year, going out west and up north more than ever before. So we hope to see you soon, and thanks for everything you've done for us. We couldn't do any of this without y'all!

Brian, Scott, Joey, Scotty, and Ashley

Holiday shows and a NYE weekend festival in NC!

Big Daddy Love — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:25:00 +0000

Howdy all you Big Bus Lovin' Daddios,

Upcoming shows this weekend;
Thursday: Newport News VA, Hoss's Deli
Friday: Baltimore MD, 8x10 Club
Saturday: Williamsport PA, Bullfrog Brewery.

We've been really busy the last few weeks, with shows all over NC, SC, and Virginia, in addition to a run to OH and IN! That's too much to try to cover here, so instead we'll talk a little bit about our first Love Bus Costume Ball that we held on October 13. Love Bus in Wonderland was (obviously) Alice in Wonderland themed. It was also a book drive and fundraiser for the children and youth library at Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind. We had a great time dressing up and seeing all of the creative costumes you all came up with!

BDL in their Wonderland costumes

We want to take some time and let everyone know about our holiday plans this year. Unfortunately (beyond our control) we are unable to play our annual Thanksgiving show in Sparta, NC, but it is OK because we want everyone to come to our Ziggy's show the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday, November 21st). We will be recording and filming the show for a live album, and we want all our friends to be a part of it! The one thing that we consistently hear the most is "We want an album with Scott singing!" So we've decided that this is the perfect opportunity to make that happen. There are a few other big reasons why this show will be amazing: BIG SOMETHING and Winston-Salem favorite THE HERITAGE, featuring our very own Mr. Cass Copsey. AND the Ziggy's show will be a Love Bus event: a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank. Bring canned food, soups, peanut butter or even toiletry items (such as shampoo or toothpaste). Help us fight hunger in Winston-Salem, especially in these colder months and the holidays. Here are details for the Ziggy's show on November 21st.

We LOVE playing Ziggy's!

A pic from our CD release party with Jim Lauderdale.

We also have some great events coming up for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. We start off by playing at two of our "home-away-from-home" markets: Raleigh on Thursday, December 27th, and Rutherfordton on Friday, December 28th. Finally, we are hosting our very own New Year's Eve party at the Ten O One Club in Winston with our friends The Deluge!

On Saturday, December 29th, we are part of The NC Music and Arts Festival, which our favorite venue owners, Chris Phelps and Brittany Wilson, are putting on in Lexington, NC. Check out this lineup, all for $30: Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Big Something, New Familiars, BDL, and Barefoot Manner, and The Broadcast. This mini-festival runs two nights, and you can get details and buy tickets here. Come celebrate local NC musicians in the beautiful Edward C. Smith Auditorium.

Here's some video from one of our shows at High Rock in Lexington NC

Would you like to be a part of our "street team" and help us put up flyers in your market for free tickets to shows? Email us at bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com.

We hope everyone is having a great week, and we hope to see you soon.

Thanks so much,
BDL

Love Bus in Wonderland

bdladmin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:51:02 +0000

The Love Bus is going through the looking glass into Wonderland!

Join us on Saturday, October 13 at High Rock Outfitters for a Big Daddy Love concert and costumed Alice in Wonderland-themed event and a book drive for the children’s and young adult library at Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind. This is our most elaborate Love Bus event yet, so don’t miss it!

Big Daddy Love members will be in costumes!

Leave your guesses as to who will be what in a Facebook comment…

Download full size poster here

Requested book donations: Tracy’s Little Red Schoolhouse at Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind needs:

large print and audio books for children and young adults
cash and check donations will also be accepted for this nonprofit

You can search Amazon.com for available audio books and large print editions.

Books are needed for all age and reading levels.

Activities:

Costume contest, prizes, Mad Hatter tea party, photo booth with professional photographers, and a Big Daddy Love show!

Costumes: Dress as your favorite Alice in Wonderland character OR another storybook character. There will be a costume contest, so be creative!

Discounted Costume resources:

At the Ritz Costumes in Greensboro: ask for BIG DADDY LOVE. They have a ton of Alice characters and other storybook costumes, and they will be glad to help you put something together. Reserve ASAP! https://www.facebook.com/AtTheRitzCostumes

Costumes and pieces range from $10 to $25.

Twin City Stage (phone: 748-0857 Ext 205) offers full costume weekly rentals. Mention that you are renting for this nonprofit event for a discount. Reserving in advance STRONGLY suggested.

If you can’t make the event and still want to contribute books, contact Jenny at jviars@wsifb.com to arrange a drop-off at Tracy’s Little Red School House.

See you on the other side of the looking glass!

New BDL Merchandise!

Big Daddy Love — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:27:00 +0000

We are really excited about our new t-shirts, which we just got last week! Here's a sneak peek, but be sure to come check out all the new merch at any upcoming show. NC folks, you'll have TWO chances to grab one (or all!) of these tomorrow, as we play the Dixie Classic Fair at 7:30 on the Clock Tower Stage, followed by a late show at Ten O One with our good friends the Wyndy Trail Travelers.

First, we have two t-shirt options with the new BDL logo! We're really thrilled by how these turned out. We also have the design on a black tee. These are all $15 each.

Next is another design from the logo contest that we really loved, and it looks awesome on a tee. It's also $15.

Finally, by popular demand, a long-sleeve shirt! The moose design looks great on this one, too; it's $20.

Before I sign off, here's a video of the Wyndy Trail Travelers. If you've never seen them, you're in for a treat tomorrow night! See you down the road!

Brian and Big Daddy Love

9/12 – 9/18 Our trip to NY, PA, MA, and beautiful VT so far!

Big Daddy Love — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Howdy all you Big Love Bussin' Daddios!

Upcoming Shows:
9/19 Harrisonburg, PA, Appalachian Brewery
9/20 Washington, DC, South on South Capital show
920 Washington, DC, Bayou on the Pen
9/21 Richmond, VA, The Camel
9/22 Hot Springs, NC, French Broad Fall Festival

We are sitting in Williamsport, PA. If you're a baseball fan and that rings a bell, it is because this is the home of the Little League World Series, along with the Little League World Series Hall of fame (of course!). It also has some really great hiking trails close by, we hear; we don't know for sure since yesterday was our day off and it rained almost 3 inches. I hear that NC had a lot of rain as well.

The trip has been good so far. It's always fun to see people experience New York City for the first time, and this trip was Scott's.

We met up with Big Something to play Sullivan Hall, which is known as one of the best small venues in the whole city. We had a whole slew of NC boys in NYC that night.

Outside Sullivan Hall in NY.

After the show, we found out that we were on the same block as the place we visited last time we were in the city, a place called The Red Lion. On that trip, the house band let BDL (sans banjo) get up and play a few songs. We had a blast that night and couldn't believe we were so close to it again.

I can tell you that I absolutely loved this band. They are called Days of Wild - be sure to check them out. The guys from Big Something met us there and we watched one of the most amazing shows we had seen in a while, and this is why I love NYC so much. To survive in the city -where tiny one room apts are $2500/month- you have to be really good at something. Here we have this house band that plays a couple of times a week and charges no cover, and they are better than almost any other band we see on the road. And this goes for most of the people you'll meet in the city. They are both very smart, and very good at what they do, which is the combination of things that make people extremely interesting. I've loved everyone I've met in the city because of this, and I think it is why there is a palpable electric charge in the air that everyone notices when visiting.

We see a lot of music on the road: some of it is pretty good, and some of it is just ok. On this night we saw a band made up of people from all over the world (Japan, Britain, Brazil, and France were all represented here), and they absolutely rocked it. We were blessed with the presence of the biggest BDL fan in CA that night, as Jenny De Guzman flew to NY with her friend Dennis, to hang out with us, and I remember standing beside her saying, "You know, this reminds me why I play music." It doesn't matter what job you have, it can become mundane sometimes with the ins and outs of the daily grind, and this does happen to all of us, but I remember standing there feeling like I was falling in love with music all over again. These musicians understood their craft on a very deep level, a place where the groove is a living and breathing entity that everyone plays a small role in, and no one controls. We all agreed the trumpet player (not in this pic) was probably the best player we've ever seen, and he was there with his girlfriend who had a small board set up and literally took tap-dance solos with a super funky beat behind it. It sounds weird, but it worked. You can see the drummer in this picture, his name is Papa Guyo, and he was a character. Full head of white hair and white beard, but he lived and breathed a funky groove, or a straight Latin-flavored beat, whatever they decided to play. His drum kit consisted of a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, one cymbal, and a cow-bell (oh yeah!) and he played more on that minimalist kit than you'll see drummers play on a set of 15 drums.

The next time you're in the city, find The Red Lion.

Our next stop took us to Wilkes-Barre, PA, to play a cool venue called the River Street Jazz Cafe with our new and fast friends, MiZ. They first opened for us in Boone, NC, and now we get to open for them in their hometown. We really like these guys a lot. They are all super-nice and all great musicians, and we're proud to be sharing another show with them on October 20th at the Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh, NC.

You can listen to our set at the River St Jazz Cafe.

Me sitting in with Miz. Mike Mizwinski and Justin Mazer L-R

Our "anchor" for this trip, as we call it, was the Wormtown Music Festival in Massachusetts. Here are a few pics from the festival.

You don't see this very much! Tie-dyes beside a 19th century graveyard!

One of the stages at Wormtown

Here is the guitar player of a Grateful Dead cover band. Yes, really!

Sometimes sleeping arrangements aren't what you would call "optimal" and we have to do the best we can. The reason we call the van "the bus" is because it doubles as sleeping space as well.

Scott and Scotty showing how to properly sleep in the bus.

The next day we headed to the very scenic Burlington, VT, where our manager Tom Baggott lives. He's worked with bands such as Phish and Railroad Earth when they were our size, and he seems to see the same potential in us, which is the type of person we want on our team! He was able to get us into the legendary venue of Nectar's that is known as being Phish's home base as they were starting out. And no, we didn't play "Rift." We talked about it and debated it but decided not to.

Tom has always told us the VT mountains will remind us of home and they really do. I can see why people love this place so much, as it is one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. This was definitely the farthest north I've ever been in my life.

The next day we had a very long 9.5 hour drive to get back to PA and play in Williamsport, at a great place called the Bull Frog Brewery. We found out after our first set that quite a few people had driven over from Wilkes-Barre who had seen us 2 nights before for their first time. We just thought that was awesome. This was probably the best reception we've had so far, as everyone at the show really got it. They were engaged with every song we played, and we could feel the energy and had a blast. The owner of this brewery actually gave us the 2nd floor of his building, which is an empty banquet room, to stay in for free for the last two nights.

Our accommodations for 2 days! They trusted us with a stocked bar!

That's about it for now. Thanks for keeping up with us, and feel free to share this blog on all the inter-web tubes so we can get the word out! We'll be back home in NC soon.

Oh, and we've picked up some brand new shirts that we are very proud of. Probably our favorite shirts so far. So be on the lookout for them at our merch table. We'll get some good pics of them to post soon.

We'd love some street team help as well. If you're interested please send info to: bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com.

Thanks so much and see ya down the road!

--Brian and BDL

The Evolution of a Song…

Big Daddy Love — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:30:00 +0000

A good friend of ours and one of the drivers of our charity team "The Love Bus," Stacy Jones, mentioned to me that she liked the "behind the scenes conversation" of what songs we were going to play with L Shaped Lot at Floyd Fest. That gave me the idea of writing about how we came about playing the great Phish song "Rift."

First of all, Phish is one of those bands that live music fans typically either really love or really hate. Musicians can approach it a little differently because the music those four guys make is on such a higher plane compared to what's out there these days. The pure compositions can make even be-bop jazz, which is also a complicated style of music, seem simple. One has to look to the likes of Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, and the composers of orchestral music to find compositions of similar complexity. And even then you still are hard pressed to find anyone who flows deftly between genres of music while maintaining such a high level of creative output. It is from these aspects of their music that BDL draws a lot of inspiration. Joey has never even seen a live Phish show but has dug into Trey Anastasio's playing on a deep level. On the other hand both Scotty and I have seen a lot of shows.

I can remember the genesis of the idea pretty clearly. Joey was learning a couple different Trey solos, and one of them was "Rift." I got my banjo and said, "You know, the intro and the piano solo of that song are perfect for the banjo." I started playing it, and we laughed about how cool it would be to learn the whole song and perform it. At that point it was nothing more than one of those, "Wouldn't it be cool if...." ideas. (We have a lot of those.) Throughout the weeks he kept learning more and more of the guitar solo (it's a very long guitar solo), and we figured out what chords were being played underneath; the two of us would play a little bit of it during soundcheck through the late spring and early summer months.

Around the middle of the summer, Ashley came up to us and said, "We should really figure out something special to play at the Big What Festival in late August." As a lot of you know, this is a very small festival compared to the likes of Floyd Fest and some others that we play through the year. But the difference is this festival is hosted and attended by all the people that we consider family. Big Something was the host band, and we've developed a very deep friendship with these guys. The land owner, Jeremy Bell, is one of our favorite people in the whole world. And it's held at a place called Possum Holler! It's the perfect storm of awesomeness. And Wook was right, we needed something special.

So a few weeks before the festival, we met at our super secret Shelby shed space and started working on the song. First of all, it's just a hard song to play. One of the driving forces behind us learning it is knowing that if we could pull this off, it would blow some peoples minds. There are very few bands that would even attempt it, much less be successful, and we loved this challenge.

Let me give you an idea of what this song consists of. If you play every note from one "C" to the next octave "C" you'll play 12 tones in all. A majority of the songs we're exposed to will have chords based off only 3 of those tones, such as a typical blues song. Most pop songs you hear will have up to 5 chords from the 12 tones. But not this song: oh no, Rift has a chord based on every single tone, 12 different chords in all types of different combinations, which is almost unheard of.

We discovered that Scotty can actually sing the second part while playing this incredibly hard poly-rhythm drum part. It blew our minds, really. We spent a few days working on the song, and started wishing each other "good luck" each time we started playing it (a habit that we're still in, actually). It started coming together and we realized that we might actually pull this off. After a little break, we met for one last rehearsal before going to the festival. We knew we had it at that point. As we were packing up from that last rehearsal, I can remember a moment when Joey was walking around in a dazed fashion looking at the ground and talking to himself, saying "I can't believe it...I can't believe it." I asked if he was ok, and he just looked at me an said, "I can't believe I'm in a band that can play Rift." I knew exactly what he meant!

So there we are, at the Big What Festival and we finally get to the point that we've been looking forward to for quite a while. We get Jeremy Bell onstage to recognize him for all the work he's put into the fest and say, "This song is for you." (He's a huge Phish-head too.) And we played it...all of it. I think we were just as surprised in the moment that we were doing it as the audience who had no idea. It was quite an experience.

You can listen to the whole show here.

We also just played the Camp Barefoot Festival near Bartow, WV and saw the most amazing light show that we've ever witnessed. The festival actually had to get permission from the FAA (yes, that FAA) before they could allow it. The light show basically consisted of the strongest lasers that we've ever seen. I'll add some pix from our good friend Andy Cox. You should "like" his page and you'll see amazing photos from the best festivals in the Southeast. He's also the photographer that got the picture of us at Floyd Fest by the big "LOVE" sign that you see in our last album.

The owner of this festival, Scott McClain, is a huge BDL supporter and is one of those people that got behind us early, inviting us to his festival twice, hired us to play his sister's wedding, and most recently invited us to stay Sunday night and play the staff after-party. Our festival sets were fun, but there's nothing like playing a party for a big group of people who just worked their butts off putting on a festival of this size. They were so appreciative, and we were happy to do it.

And so here are some pictures of lasers so strong that they are regulated by the FAA.

Before I sign off, I do want to say congratulations to Joey, who got married in Costa Rica just a few weeks ago. Congrats, Beth and Joey!! We love you guys.

--Brian (with lots of help from Jenny Viars) and BDL

If you'd like to help us out with street team email us at bigdaddystreetteam@gmail.com

See ya down the road.

Fun, Family, and Friends at the Fantastic Floyd Fest

Big Daddy Love — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:12:00 +0000

Mainstage of Floyd Fest

(I will probably add more pictures and videos, as well as a link to the recordings to our sets when they come in)
Here is a link to our 4th set of the festival at the Pink Floyd Stage. This one has Andrew Hendryx from Yarn sitting in with us and ripping the electric mandolin.

And here is the link to our first set of the festival. It was the VIP party on Wed night and we debuted 3 new songs that we're proud of. And we have Alex from L Shape Lot playing "Circle" with us. Check it out!

We were really looking forward to this FloydFest. They graciously gave us four killer sets, the most we've ever had there, and we had just finished "wood-shedding" in Shelby for several days, working on new songs to debut at the festival. Other than that we didn't know what to expect. Every festival is different and going in with a "plan" is useless because the in-the-moment spontaneity is always better than any plan you can come up with. We would never have guessed that we would come into the festival knowing the guys from L Shape Lot as acquaintances and leave knowing them as brothers....but that's exactly what happened, and it shaped our entire festival experience.

Eric Miller, the lead singer, sent me a text the week before asking me if I would sit in with them on Wednesday night. Their set was right after ours for the VIP pre-party, and it would be easy to jam a little. I said "sure," and we exchanged a few ideas about songs and tempos and various music nerd concepts. Joey had also talked to their guitar player Alex Lanier about sitting in with us. Joey told me he should play "Circle Around the Sun" with us and join in on the trading-licks part. Joey added, "Don't worry, this guy rips it." Joey doesn't lie about things like that, so I knew he'd be fine.

We got going on the Pink Floyd Garden Stage and had one of the best crowds we've ever seen there. This is the stage that propelled us to win their "Under the Radar" contest two years before. (L Shape Lot won it last year.)

Playing the Pink Floyd Garden Stage this year.

Before I continue, allow me to do a little backtracking. Two years ago we were invited to come up and compete in this contest that consists of about 20-30 unsigned bands. Our best time slot was at this stage on Saturday night around 10pm, but an hour before that the power shut down completely, causing the entire operation to come to a screeching halt. We thought this was a terrible thing at first, since we might miss out on our set. But what happened instead was our set was pushed back to exactly the time that Railroad Earth was finished on the main stage, and this area, the beer garden, filled up with several thousand people; and we played one of the best shows we had ever played at that point. A month later, we found out that the fans voted us as the best band in the "UTR" series. We had people come up to us for a full year and say that hearing us play Pink Floyd's "The Wall" on that stage was a highlight for them.

So here we are, playing the same stage to a great crowd again. Alex came up on "Circle" and just crushed it. He's going to kill me for saying this but...we've all imagined what it would be like if Tony Rice had decided to play electric guitar instead of acoustic, and watching Alex play you get a little glimpse of that. Bluegrass guitar picking is one of the most disciplined routes of music you can take. Alex has that discipline and technique and he just burns up and down that telecaster neck with it. It's really amazing to both hear and watch. So there we are with Alex and Joey just going at it, and I'm thinking about how grateful I am to be using 3 picks and not just one.

Alex playing "Circle Around the Sun"

Joey and I got up and played several songs with them including "Freeborn Man," Walls of Time," and a punk tune that I'd never heard before called, "Take the Skinheads Bowling." It was more fun than anyone expected; we now had new musical brethren, and we were determined to jam as much as possible together.

Here's a video that our friend Scott took. Unfortunately we can't get the audio and video to sync up. But it shows how much fun we had together. This is during their main stage slot on Friday.

L Shape will also be playing at the Garage in Winston Salem this Friday night! Details here.

This picture is after our last set together at the VIP Stage. Friends for life.

Overall the fest was great, and everyone absolutely loved the "new guys" in the band. We made a lot of new friends and talked to a lot of old friends.

Right before our main stage set

One thing that I always notice is that the lower and mid-level bands can actually put on a much better show than the big-time headliners that everyone comes to see. I personally thought that our friends Yarn played a much more engaging and rocking set on the main stage than several of the famous headliners. And I think most of us would say the same about Galactic's set on the Hill Holler Stage on Thur night as well. Obviously this is all subjective, but I recommend to not get too caught up in only seeing the famous people and give some new bands a chance. You'll probably be blown away more than you think. The headliner that I enjoyed the most was Bruce Hornsby. He surrounds himself by such amazing musicians that his show is just amazing to watch.

What a great pic by our good friend Milo Farineau!

Here are some pictures from the Festival:

Main Stage!

The thing we heard the most through the festival is "Wow, the new guys rock!"

Scotty doing his thing, and looking fantastic.

Roger Gupta got this shot right before our first set on Wednesday

Ashley and I have been listening to Leftover Salmon for a long time, and we agreed that this was the best they've sounded in years. Their banjo picker, Andy Thorn, is an old friend of mine from Boone NC. He's an amazing musician and a perfect fit for them. He has spent time playing in the NC band Big Fat Gap (I love that name) as well as a couple of years with our good friends Larry Keel and Natural Bridge.

We want to thank everyone that came to all our sets and talked us up at the festival. We'll be playing near your hometown soon, so keep a lookout for us. Thanks!

Oh, and don't miss L Shape Lot at the Garage in Winston this friday night!

Brian and BDL

Actually this isn't from the festival. I just liked it.

That one time, when we opened for Willie Nelson!

Big Daddy Love — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:33:00 +0000

Howdy all you big love bussin' daddios!

Upcoming shows this week. Click here for details.
07.03.12 - Fun Fourth Festival (Greensboro NC)
07.04.12 - Palm Room (Wrightsville Beach, NC)
07.05.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
07.06.12 - Outer Banks Brewing Station (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
07.07.12 - Ted Constant Convocation Center (Norfolk, VA)
07.08.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)

We've been asked one question over and over: "Did you get to hang with Willie?" I will go ahead and answer that one now: no, we didn't. (Well, one of us did, but more on that in a moment.) Willie's bus pulled right up to the steps of the stage, he walked up the steps, played his show, and then went right back to his bus. When you are a living legend you can do what what you want.

Overall it was the best experience we've ever had; other than not hanging with Willie, it was the perfect day. Opening bands usually hope to play for about 30-40% of the crowd, but Willie fans are prompt and I think we played for around 90% of the people that came out, around 3000 people. We were supposed to play for 60 minutes, but after our soundcheck the production manager came and asked us if we wanted to play for 75 minutes. Of course we said "YES!" By halfway through our set, we looked out and saw a lot of their crowd on their feet dancing, which was an amazing experience. We were told that Willie's staff really liked us a lot.

Right after we got offstage we walked into the movie star Owen Wilson, who has been a friend of Willie's since they made a movie together a while back.

We've already had people start coming to shows and telling us that they saw us here and are now huge fans.

Here is a link where you can download or stream our set for free, compliments of Travis Viars.

Is this really happening?

I decided that I should wear my "fancy hat"

Check out the crowd in Joey's glasses.

We don't know why he breaks so many bass strings!

During soundcheck I told Scott to look down at what he's standing on. That's Willie's rug!

Yeah, this is fun.

The biggest crowd we've ever played for!

As I said earlier, one of us got to meet Willie. Jenny was in the right place at the right time and was able to go onto his bus and take pictures of the land owners and was able to get them to take a picture of her. As much as Jenny does for us we wouldn't have chosen anyone else to actually make it onto the bus. This was perfect. From Jenny: I would have rather dragged all of you with me! It just happened so fast, I went with it. I accomplished my main goal right before this photo: I put a copy of Let It Grow into Willie's hands. Who knows, he could be riding down the road listening to BDL right now!

Having fun backstage

Possibly the most famous guitar ever. A Martin N-20 named "Trigger"

It's amazing how strong his voice still is.

It was just an incredible night for us all. We want to thank everyone who has helped us get to this point. We couldn't have done it without y'all.

SPREAD THE LOVE
We would LOVE for you to help us out with the street team activities. If you'd like to help promote an upcoming show, email streetteam@ufomusic.net and we will set you up with everything you need. We've got great e-flyers, widgets, and other tools you can use to help promote online, so if you've got Internet access, you can help! If you want to hang up posters, hand out flyers, and talk to real people, feel free to print up the digital posters. And of course, we'd also love your help over at the merch booth! Check out the list of places we could use help spreading the love.

Upcoming shows. Click here for Details.
07.04.12 - Palm Room (Wrightsville Beach, NC)
07.05.12 - Live Bar (Greenville, NC)
07.06.12 - Outer Banks Brewing Station (Kill Devil Hills, NC)
07.07.12 - Ted Constant Convocation Center (Norfolk, VA)
07.08.12 - The Backstreet Pub (Beaufort, NC)
07.12.12 - Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill (Roanoke, VA)
07.13.12 - Altamont Theatre (Asheville, NC)
07.14.12 - The Loft @ Benchwarmers (Salisbury, NC)
07.18.12 - Rapture (Charlottesville, VA)