![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/suffers.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt’s not unheard of for a band to change its style as it grows and develops. But Houston-based band the Suffers makes soul music that’s far more compelling than \u2013 and completely different from \u2013 the group’s original vision. Fresh from the ordeal of Hurricane Harvey, the Suffers played an Asheville, North Carolina date at the Diana Wortham Theatre on September 22.<\/p>\n
Even a quick spin of \u201cMake Some Room,\u201d the opening track on the Suffers’ self-titled 2016 debut reveals a tune deeply immersed in a 1970s soul vibe. But when bassist Adam Castaneda and keyboardist Pat Kelly first put the band together in 2011, soul music wasn’t part of their plans. Instead, explains lead singer Kam Franklin, the band’s goal was to play \u201creggae, ska, rock steady covers of traditional pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In those early days, the Suffers played only a few originals alongside the covers. \u201cBut we started realizing that there were more originals within us,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cAnd the desire to play more original music was there. So instead of forcing that off, we just kind of went with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band made the transition smoothly, but some of the group’s earliest fans in Houston had a bit more trouble accepting the new direction. \u201cA lot of people had gotten used to us playing full-on cover sets,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cAnd we didn’t want to get to a place where that was what we were known for.\u201d She admits that it was hard at first to win over those fans, but the Suffers did the work to \u201cmake the sets fun without feeling like we were cheating that audience. And once we started working more on evolving that original sound, things got much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
With eight people onstage \u2013 guitar, bass, drums, keys, a three-person horn section and Franklin out front on vocals \u2013 it could be a challenge to keep the Suffers’ arrangements from being noisy and overly busy. But they’re as tight an ensemble as can be. \u201cWe try not to get on top of each other,\u201d Franklin says with a laugh. \u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s just become a part of our natural flow.\u201d She explains that from the band’s very beginning there was a collective decision \u201cnot to to showboat. Everybody here is capable of creating amazing sounds,\u201d she says, \u201cbut the point of the Suffers is to try and create a space, musically, for all<\/i> of us to shine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Suffers<\/i> is sequenced very much like a live performance, and that’s no accident. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason every [song] is where it is,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cWe wanted it to feel like an experience where the listener goes through all the emotions in that order.\u201d And in an age of ProTools and potentially unlimited overdubbing, The Suffers<\/i> was recorded live in the studio.<\/p>\n
The product of that live approach is less a document of the Suffers’ current live show than what Franklin calls an introduction. \u201cWhen we wrote and recorded the album, we weren\u2019t touring,\u201d she says. In the subsequent months on the road, the band’s sound improved further. Franklin says that when fans hear the band live, they often say things like, \u201cWow. Y\u2019all sound even better than you do on the album!\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as the hurricane that struck Houston in late August, Franklin says that everyone in and around the group remained safe and accounted for. \u201cEveryone\u2019s been volunteering and \u2013 as much as we can \u2013 trying to provide emotional support to those that have lost everything,\u201d she says, characterizing the response to Harvey as one big, city-wide effort. \u201cEverybody\u2019s hurting,\u201d she concedes. \u201cBut at the same time, everybody\u2019s very strong and knows that we\u2019re all gonna come out of this okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the band members’ experiences with Harvey are likely to influence the character of the Suffers’ next album, already in progress. The new songs \u201cfocus on everything from spiritual relationships to the relationships that we have with our parents, with our friends, and the way that we choose to treat others and ourselves,\u201d Franklin says. \u201cSo, after this hurricane, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s gonna be even more emotional stuff. I have a lot of things on my mind that I haven\u2019t even had a chance to write about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s not unheard of for a band to change its style as it grows and develops. But Houston-based band the Suffers makes soul music that’s far more compelling than \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,69],"tags":[3263],"class_list":["post-13595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-soul","tag-the-suffers","cat-41-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13597,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13595\/revisions\/13597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}