The Snopes Family Band Serves Up Spicy Sounds

The Snopes Family Band describes themselves as a “New Orleans flavored blues band with some Mississippi hot sauce on the side.”

Members also say the band is “half brass, half blues” with a twist.

“We're kind of weird,” said Neil Conway. “We have a sousaphone for a bass – and a trumpet. You don't see that every day. You usually only see that in a brass band in New Orleans, but we're trying it out with some blues songs. With the trumpet mixed with the guitar, it kind of gives it a New Orleans flavor. It's not just typical Stevie Ray Vaughn blues – it's kind of got a Dixie tinge to it.”

“Old school,” says Frank Bentley. Bentley hails from Easley and provides the sousaphone sound.

Conway, Tim Cassell and John Pursley have been playing since 2010. Bentley joined the group last year.

“We found Craigslist, advertising a sousaphone player,” Conway said.

“I was looking to start a traditional Dixieland jazz band,” Bentley said.

Some of the blues that Conway listens to use sousaphones, such as Kenny Brown. Conway graduated from high school in Greenville, Mississippi and played in a blues-rock band in Oxford, Mississippi while attending Ole Miss.

“We played with Cedric Burnside, who's grandson of R.L. Burnside and Garry Burnside, R.L.'s son,” Conway said. “They would just kind of sit in every once in a while, when they could, when they weren't on the road. That was fun.”

Conway quit that group to attend grad school. He met Pursley at Clemson, where they both teach.

The name of the band is a literary reference. The Snopes family figures largely in the works of William Faulkner.

“Me and John, we're both English professors,” Conway said. “It was the only name we could agree on.”

Bentley was a music major in college, where he played trombone in a traditional New Orleans brass band.

“We played pretty heavily in the Charlotte area and Western North Carolina,” Bentley said.

Cassell hadn't played the horns since college.

“I kind of gave it up, and didn't really think about it,” Cassell said. “I got it out to amuse my children and found that I was much more amused than they were.”

Pursley began playing drums when he was “really young” before switching over to guitar.

“When we actually first started playing, I was playing guitar,” he said. “So we had two guitars, but that wasn't working so great, because we had no percussion at all, or bass. It didn't make any sense at all.”

When he decided to be the band's drummer, Pursley thought going back to the drums would be “like riding a bike.”

“I went back and dug out my old drums and it was not like riding a bike,” Pursley said.

The band has recorded some demo tracks, the most recent of which can be found on their website, snopesfamilyband.com

“One of our goals is to record a real CD,” Bentley said. “Neil's written several songs that we're still putting the finishing touches on, to make sure their recordable. We'll head into the studio one day.”

There are two chances to see the Snopes Family Band in concert this weekend. They're playing at Blues Boulevard in Spartanburg Friday night. On Saturday, they'll play at Bleu Voodoo Grill in Easley from 8pm – 11pm as part of the Bleu Voodoo Birthday Bash 3.