Banded! The Gus Brown Band

What started out as a challenged ended up as one of the most enjoyable interviews I have done. These guys are hilarious!

I grew rather fond of Gavin Welsh and his grizzly good looks and terrible sense of humor during his stint on The Voice South Africa Season 1.

Gavin makes up one fifth of The Gus Brown Band and I recently had the privilege to get to know them a bit better.

OK let's be honest here. Until reading your bio online i was under the impression that Gus Brown must be a member of the band. Did you consider any other names or was it love at first sight for that one?

To be honest, not too many people know this but we did for a very short time consider the name "Bust a Hymen and the Womb Raiders" but we figured that this would probably affect us fairly negatively in our ability to get Radio Play. After a few names flung around the braai we decided to stick with Gus Brown, named after the road where the band was formed

There are always interesting stories to be told about how a band was formed. What is the story behind Gus Brown?

After returning from the UK I was living with a friend of mine Chris and we would regularly have braai's and beers with friends, jamming guitar and singing a few tunes. Chris suggested that he knew some brothers called Dale and Nick that played guitar (not really sure what he was saying about my guitar skills) but perhaps the three of us should get together and see if there was any synergy. I met with Dale a few times first and then Nick and within about 4 months we played our first "gig" as part of the acoustic accent competition to win a slot at The White Mountain Festival. We lost but played at the festival anyway.

Not everyone is familiar with the huge selection of musical genres out there. Care to describe 'folk funk' to those of us still battling to distinguish between pop and rock?

We started Gus Brown as a three piece band consisting of myself Dale and Nick, this lent itself to a very Folk feel with the guitars and Harmonica but Dales Unique guitar style gave our song a funkier feel than straight up folk music. Since adding Bass and Drums to the band its been pretty hard to put our finger on our exact place in the market so we've come up with Funcking Rocking Folk.

There are 5 guys in the band. Please introduce them briefly to our readers and don't be afraid to dish some dirt, we wont tell.

Well I'm Gavin Welsh, lead singer and Harmonica, hmmm dirt hey, I mooned Mathew Mole the other day and I'm sure I saw him lick his lips.

Dale Vickery (the way older of the two) plays acoustic guitar, i suppose nobody has any dirt on Dale cause none of us can stay awake long enough to see what he gets up too. Not sure he's seen a weekend morning in years.

Then there is Nick Vickery, his fingers sprinkle love on an electric guitar like nobody's business. He can be super moody especially when hungry or tired or awake... He also cost the band big bucks when he crashed our sponsored vehicle.. parking it for gods sake. He took 5 hours to come clean and tell me for fear of his life but like any good brother Dale prompted him by saying "so are you gonna tell Gavin you crashed the car"

Chad Porter plays Bass for the band but we don't have enough time to dish the dirt on Chad, flip we would be here for days, we are however super proud of him for being clean and sober for just over four years now. Just wish he would learn to drive

Brett Kenton plays the drums and in the year or so that he's been with the band we have learnt that Brett is not allowed to drink prior to gigs, actually thats kind of a band rule haha. He once got to a gig and hour late cause he could'nt find Inanda Dam, I know the dam levels are not what they should be but dude It's still a massive body of water.

You have played at a few big KZN festivals and opened for the likes of Prime Circle and Jeremy Loops. What does your bucket list look like? Any dream gigs you would like to play?

We are busy planning a Garden route and Cape Town tour in December and then a UK or USA tour in July next year, Self funded and thanks to the help of some great friends and our awesome booking agent Lisa we're hoping to make this a reality. Locally opening for an international act like Jack Johnson, John Butler or John Mayer would be phenomenal

This one is for Gavin. You tried out for the first season of The Voice South Africa. Should you have made it all the way to the final and fame set in, would you have considered a solo career or would you have stuck with the band?

It was always the plan to get as much exposure for Gus Brown during the show and that would certainly have been my place had the shot me to fame, I don't enjoy operating as a soloist and would always wanna be jamming with The brothers that are the Gus Brown Boys.

Another one about The Voice. You have been showing your support for some of the contestants on Twitter. Who are you rooting for to take the title?

First up let me start by saying I'm rooting for our local Boy Freddy from the Subway Run. As unique as his voice is he had the ability to sound one dimensional with one song sounding exactly like the next, That said he has learned so much from the amazing coaching he is receiving and the results are very clear to see. OK as for winner I would be ecstatic to see Zee or Bubbles (who reminds me so much of Lana Crowster in her personality) take it this year but their run is gonna be tough with talent like Marco around.

You are said to perform 'some unexpected cover songs'. Can you name a few please? Which is your favorite to perform?

I suppose this is not really that amazing, but what it means is that we try to keep the covers we do current hence the unexpectedness, I reckon a dude smashing our a cover of Valerie or Gavin singing Sam Smith might be considered a little unexpected

You are based in Warner Beach on the KZN South Coast. Do the locals support local music enough for a musician/band to make a sustainable living? Please elaborate a bit.

It's a double edged sword as to whether or not you wanna be a band that plays locally in your local area on a weekly basis taking what ever money you can get your hands on. The problem with this is that or though you're playing every weekend you become as good as back ground music because people get bored of seeing the same acts. This in itself is not sustainable. We have chosen to position ourselves differently with our focus being on festivals and corporate events and getting our music onto Radio. We have a massive local support network and are very privileged in this regard. Our supporters travel all over the country to watch us perform and that is very humbling to see, it's tough to sing with a lump in your throat. We do however play locally in Warner beach and surrounds about 4 times a year and do as much charity work as we can realistically handle and venues are always full of familiar faces. As for a sustainable living, for us at the moment thats' a no but the extra money it puts in our pockets is definitely worth all the effort and weekends away, not spent with our families.

Sorry guys I know this is a tough one but I just couldn't resist. If you each had to borrow one physical attribute from one of the other band members for a night what would it be and why?

Nick recons he'll have his brothers pinky toe so that he can try out the four toe footprint (Dale's pinky toes fold up onto the ones next to them)

I'd go with Dales ears so I could hear what it is he hears that makes him think he can do Backing Vocals

Chad wants Gavin hands so he can break barrels and stuff

Dale wants Gavin's beard so he can clean his unmentionables/hard to reach places

Brett wants Dales foot for it's awesome foot stamping ability