When Dom Daley reviewed The Vegabonds' debut album 'Dear Revolution' back in October of last year (you can read that review here), he described the six piece from Auburn, AL as "beardy men wearing waistcoats standing in a field" playing music that "would no doubt go down a storm in Middle America".  Said comments from our master of low slung keyboard poetry seemed to amuse the Vegabonds so much that they duly assigned their guitarist Alex Cannon as the man most likely to be able to understand our humour as we set up a transatlantic chat with our very own man from way out west (Wales that is).

Sit back and relax and let Uber Rock introduce you to another great new band to look out for in 2012.  

Hi Alex, the Vegabonds are going to be a new band to most people who read Uber Rock, so tell us a little on how the band got together.......
 
The band is a combination of two bands, Danny and the Tanks and Tophouse. Me (guitar, vocals), Paul (Bruens - bass) and Bryan (Harris - drums) were in the band Tophouse, and Danny (Allen - lead vocals) was in his band, Danny and the Tanks. We all sort of came together and the bands merged, and we picked up Richard (Forehand - guitar, slide guitar, vocals) and Jamie (Hallen - piano, organ) the same week.  We immediately started jamming and writing together.
 
Is everyone involved in the songwriting?
 
It usually starts with someone bringing an idea or sometimes an entire song to the table and everyone throws in their ideas and instrumentation and we go from there.
 

With a new album ready for release ('Southern Sons' - which you can now buy from the band via their website) tell us a bit about the songs.
 
The songs are more mature and honest, I feel. We also had more time to work on this album so we feel it is a step up from 'Dear Revolution'.
 
What are the plans for the rest of 2012 with regards to touring?
 
Well, we will be finishing up the European tour on February 25, 2012 and we will come back to America.  We hope everyone enjoys us overseas and we can get back over there again before 2012 ends. A summer tour would be really cool, but who knows what will happen? If we don't end up going back overseas for a second European tour in 2012, we will be touring throughout the United States.
 
What kind of a music scene is there where you are? Is there a good live circuit?
 
The music scene is good. There are some great bands in our city and we are all friends. The music scene has gotten much better in the last couple of years. There are more bands jamming and doing The Rolling Stones and The Band and The Allman Brothers, great bands like that. It makes it fun when you have a night off and you can go hear some great music. 
 
With bands like The Black Crowes on something of a permanent hiatus, and music with a Southern rock/blues influence being a little thin on the ground, do you think there is an audience out there waiting to hear a new band like yours? Also do you think it's harder these days for new bands to break through what with the way people buy music changing and a more traditional way disappearing through the demise of music stores and venues closing.
 
It is definitely harder to get your music out there these days if you aren't signed to a major record label.  There are some good independent labels, but all of the good ones are just as hard to get into as major labels. We are just going to continue touring and playing and recording and see how that works out for us. We are just going to roll with the punches, I guess.

What can people expect from the new album? Was there a temptation to expand the sound?
 
We really tried to branch out on this album and tap into as many different genres as possible, but still making it sound like we want to sound. It is all pretty natural and honest though. We just play and what comes out that we like, we play. We spent more time recording this time and went into a different studio so we hope the quality of the recording is more mature too. We believe it is. We used the same producers though. We have become great friends with them and it helps when you can speak your mind and feel comfortable when recording. So hopefully it will be easy to see that we tried to expand the sound.
 
And finally Alex something a little lighter to finish off wat music is currently influencing your MP3 player or Ipod? Put the player on shuffle and give us the next five tunes (no cheating)......
 
Ghostland Observatory - 'Stranger Lover'
Pink Floyd - 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'
Gov't Mule - 'Thorazine Shuffle'
Led Zeppelin - 'No Quarter'
Widespread Panic - 'The Waker'

Having yet to hear The Vegabonds sophomore effort 'Southern Sons' I sadly can't tell you right now if it is full of music that "would no doubt go down a storm in Middle America", but I think I'm pretty safe in saying it will no doubt feature a picture of beardy men wearing waistcoats standing in a field., and you know what? I'm cool with that - as like I said in my review of 'Dear Revolution', "we should never judge a book by its' cover."

Check out The Vegabonds via their website (link below) and tell them Uber Rock sent you.

http://www.thevegabonds.com/