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Romeo Champagne dishes up a tasty aural gumbo

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By Don Thrasher, Contributing Writer 4:07 PM Thursday, May 28, 2009

With four very different songwriters contributing to the mix, Romeo Champagne’s music could come off as a slapdash mess. The fact that it’s the complete opposite is largely because of the distinctive individual musical styles of members Danny Sauers (saxophone, harmonica, vocals), Chris Coalt (guitar, vocals), Rob Thaxton (bass, vocals) and Josh Johnson (drums, vocals).

“I wouldn’t say it’s a concern of ours, but we do have a lot of different influences,” Sauers said. “We didn’t want to sound like this kind of band and that kind of band. We’re hoping even though we pick and choose from different genres it comes together into some kind of gumbo and yet it sounds like us.”

It is hard to pin down the group’s sound, which draws successfully from progressive rock, funk, jazz fusion, roots rock, reggae and blues.

“This band as a whole is a good outlet for each of us to let our influences come out,” Thaxton said. “It’s definitely rock, but it’s got some roots and funk to it, but overall it’s just a really good rock sound.”

“I think we have our own distinctive sound,” Sauers said. “There’s some kind of weird cohesiveness.”

“Guilt to Consume,” the group’s new full-length, was recorded at Earth Works Studio in Newark, Ohio, and captures the intensity of the group’s live show but tops it off with tasty overdubs.

“Capturing what we usually do on stage was easy because there are only four of us and we each have our own individual parts,” Thaxton said. “But we did use the studio to our advantage and tried to do some different stuff with the tunes. It will give people something different to listen to than when they see us live.”

The album sequencing is spot on, opening with the jazz-fusion instrumental “Slide Rule,” and progressing with each song transitioning perfectly into the next.

“That’s what we wanted, even going so far as the amount of breath between songs,” Coalt said. “I think it makes the album flow better. We also thought about dynamics, peaks and valleys and all that.”

“We all four sing so we wanted to try to scatter that around,” Sauers said. “We have three instrumentals on there, too.”

“It took a while because all those variables were playing into the decisions we made,” Johnson said. “Ultimately it came down to two different ways to spread it out, but I think it turned out really good.”

So good, in fact, you won’t feel guilty about consuming this aural gumbo again and again.

For more information, go to www.romeochampagne.com.

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