Featured Band: The Bravados

I’m over here in Waynesboro, Tennessee, a place I’ve been seeing a lot of recently. I come over here to Jeanette’s, a local musician’s restaurant, to play music with the owner’s son, Dillon. He also fronts the house band here, The Bravados. They’re a mix of different age groups, combining different genres and tastes. They’re a four-piece collaboration of drums, guitars, vocals, bass, and whatever else the muti-talented guys feel like playing at the moment.

Dillon’s currently restringing his guitar, getting ready for our own show tonight, and while I’ve got him in one place for more than five seconds, I took the time out to talk to him about The Bravados.

A: Give me a sample of your set list.

D: Oh, man. We’re so… (pause) We try not to stick to one genre, because we play a lot of mixed crowds, so we try to appeal to everyone. We play singer/songwriter stuff, modern country, and classics like the Beatles, Tom Petty, you know. We do old country, like “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” And then, of course, we do originals. But we want to have something for every person in the crowd…at least once a night, we want to give everybody the chance to sing along.

A: What’s your favorite show you’ve played?

D: (looks to the guy behind the bar) Mikey, what’s our favorite show? That BBQ?

M: Yeah, that was badass.

D: Yeah, we played at this rich person’s house before. It was huge! And they had whole pigs cooking and it was crazy. We hired one of our good friends out of Collinwood to do sound; it made it a lot easier on me. It was so laid back. It seemed like everything we did, the crowd loved. They fed us some of the best you could ask for. The pay was good. You don’t have to include that, do you?

A: What all do you do in The Bravados? Sing? Play?

D: Yeah, I’m kind of the frontman, you could say. I introduce the band, I sing, I play guitar…I’m also the booking agent, blah blah blah. (AKA the boring stuff)

A: Where do you see the band in five to ten years?

D: I see our band where we’re all college age, career age, so we’re not (pause)…I don’t see us going for a record deal, but I see us being friends for a long time, always getting back together and playing. We’re going to enjoy our time together and play every show we can until we have to part ways. In ten years, I hope we’re all just hanging out together playing music.

So, now you know a little bit about The Bravados. They don’t have any recorded material, but their other singer, Jimmy Smith, has an album out himself. Stay Right Here is mainly a country album, and you can find it on iTunes and at Jeanette’s itself. The guys want to be more of a live band, but they might put out a demo soon.

You can check out the boys’ YouTube channel and their Facebook page.