#newnusic

Meet the Fuzz Gospel band, Dr Joe. Raised on a farm outside Salina, Kansas, the band leader Joe Sparacino spent his early childhood learning piano from a southern gospel choir matron and listening to his family’s old vinyl collection of Ray Charles, Leon Russell and James Booker. Today, Dr Joe is thrilled to share their debut single, “Tell Your Mother.” 

“Tell Your Mother” was produced by Vance Powell (four-time Grammy Award-winning record producer) whose credits include Jack White, The Raconteurs, White Stripes, Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Chris Stapleton, etc. and recorded at his famed Sputnik Studio in East Nashville. The video was filmed by Michael Anthony Gibson at St Elmo Sound Stage in Austin, TX.

Joe says, “I was brought up on those big gospel chord movements and the energy of 60’s rock and roll. I call it FUZZ GOSPEL – because the songs have those wide handed gospel chords and vocal harmonies – but instead of sounding clean and sweet – we cooked them so they sound crunchy, distorted and overdriven.  I run a 100-year-old piano through a guitar amp and it sounds huge.”

Moving to Austin after school Joe built a band around this GOSPEL FUZZ sound and started touring - He enlisted fellow Austin musicians: Pierson Saxon, Brennan Howell and Patrick Young and as Dr JOE has become renowned around the USA for delivering a potent mix of psyche, boogie and southern soul whipped up into an incendiary riot of chaos and fun - all without the aid of any guitars - and always travelling with their very own ‘Ships’ piano – a battle-hardened, stripped bare 1922 gem of an instrument with 5 Octaves and 68 Notes (as opposed to grand piano’s 88 notes and 7 Octaves - with a minor third).  The debut single was recorded on vintage equipment using a Studer A800 24 track tape recorder and an old API valve console at Powell’s studio.

In support of the new music, they are playing a hometown show in Austin, TX on February 14th at The Parish and then heading to SXSW in March.