…Not Your Average Rock Band

After playing in Nashville in for about six years, brothers Tony and Cody Higbee left their former bands to seek out something fresh.  They changed out band members who brought with them a unique set of influences to the table, and in the fall of 2011, they debuted as a trio at The Basement, in Nashville, Tennessee.  It was there that friend and talented guitarist Josh Dutoit first talked with Tony about joining the band.  After a couple of drinks and a subsequent jam session, Josh became the Lead Guitarist marking the beginning of the four-member band. 

Not long after Josh joined the band, East Side’s original drummer left to pursue other things in life.  Fortunately, Paul Simmons introduced the guys to another drummer, Chris Brewer, who as Tony Higbee said, “…has been the best addition we could possibly ask for.”  By Chris joining the band, their dynamic roster was complete. 

The East Side Gamblers are not your average rock band.  These guys write all original music, and the beauty of it is, it sounds very much like classic rock but more – it’s a real compilation of their individual artistry and influences that like a fine wine, have come to fruition after many years of hard work and determination.  This is one of the reasons two of their songs off the new album, The Big Machine –“The Getaway” and “High Time”– just released last year, have received some air time on Sirius XM’s Hair Nation and Nashville’s 105.9 The Rock and Metal Works.  It is really a testament to the band, when you consider that radio stations like Hair Nation that play predominantly classic rock are playing their music. 

Not only do the Gamblers perform with all they’ve got, firing out songs chock full of guitar riffs, raspy and outstanding vocals with high energy, but their songs have really great lyrics, too.  I don’t know about everyone else, but for me, lyrics can really be what helps me to connect with a song on a higher and fuller level, which is precisely what happened when I first started listening to their music.  I want to reiterate that I am not a music critic, nor do I want to be… but I do celebrate great rock and roll music and musicians and believe wholeheartedly that this band deserves some recognition.

Since their debut in 2011, the East Side Gamblers have published three albums, and shared the stage with an impressive list of popular artists, such as Lzzy Hale, Tom Keifer, Kiss, Jake E Lee and the Red Dragon Cartel, L.A. Guns, James Durbin of Quiet Riot, and many more, and have performed at some of the most coveted Rock venues in Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta and Illinois, such as Mercy Lounge, The Basement, The Basement East, Open Chord, Rascals, and at the Rocklanta Festival in Atlanta, GA.

What you might not know is that Lead Vocalist Tony Higbee is a cancer survivor, having had Hodgkins Lymphoma about 12 years ago.  Because of the overwhelming support Tony says he received from friends and fellow musicians in the community who helped him when he was going through it, he became very motivated to pay back that support by helping others going through a similar ordeal.  Tony and The East Side Gamblers have spearheaded the “Chemokaze” benefit concerts to carry on that effort, which event takes place now almost annually.  For this event, they invite the finest group of musicians to come together to help raise money for a member of their own Nashville music community, who is in need due to a serious illness.  All proceeds are 100% donated after the show to the person the benefit was for.  These shows have been very successful and for the past three years, have been held at Mercy Lounge, in Nashville. 

Band members – Tony Higbee (Lead Vocalist/Co-Lead Guitarist), Cody Higbee (Bassist), Josh Dutoit (Lead Guitarist) and Chris Brewer (Drummer) – were gracious enough to allow me to talk with them Thursday before the show, where they opened up for the L.A. Guns at The Basement East.  As the interview will reveal, these guys are not only a group of intelligent and talented musicians who adhere to very high standards, but they are authentic, kind, and quite simply, a fantastic group of guys.  I hope you will enjoy learning about them as much as I did.

THE EARLY DAYS

LTHN:  When did you really dive into playing music, and what drew you to the music industry? 

TONY HIGBEE:  I wanted to play music as long as I can remember.  He (pointing at his brother, Cody Higbee) probably would say the same thing, although I don’t want to speak for him.

CODY HIGBEE:  Yeah (nodding in agreement).

TONY HIGBEE:  It’s really been a lifelong deal.  I moved here in 2003 and was already in a band called “Bombshell Crush.”  Cody moved here in 2004 and was in a band called “One Hundred and One Opera.”  Then, as the bands were dissolving, we wound up joining forces and started a band called “Caprice.”   We did Caprice for about six years.  Then it dissolved, and out of the ashes of that came the East Side Gamblers and we did our first show as a trio at The Basement. 

LTHN:  You knew Josh Dutoit before he actually joined the band.  Tell us about that. 

TONY HIGBEE:   I knew Josh – we worked together – but Josh was there that night (referring to the opening at The Basement in 2011), and he said “Heh, you guys want a guitar player?”  I knew he was a great guitar player, so we got together and jammed once and it was awesome, and kept it going ever since.  Then a couple years in, our original drummer left to pursue other life interests, and I was introduced to Chris (Brewer) by Paul Simmons, who was drumming at the time for Tom Keifer (note: vocalist and guitarist for the band Cinderella), and we were playing together in that project.  Chris has been with us ever since, and has been the best addition we could possibly ask for.

LTHN:  Josh, what were you doing before The East Side Gamblers?

JOSH DUTOIT:  Nothing really solid, just playing a bunch of random acts doing cover gigs and stuff like that, muddy type gigs, but nothing cool-original that I can recall.  Yeah, I had known Tony, and I moved to Nashville in 2006. 

TONY HIGBEE:  I was in GC a lot and we had beers a couple of times. 

JOSH DUTOIT:  Yeah, that’s kind of how that came about, but not really much of anything — just doing a lot of teaching and a lot of guitar lessons that took up most of my time.

LTHN:  Chris, how about you?  What were you doing before you landed with East Side?

CHRIS BREWER – Trying to stay away from playing music!  (Everybody laughs).  My job in the music industry takes up a lot of my time, and between that and family life, it just had me.  At that time I was playing drums with Paul Simmons who recommended me, and then told me after the fact. I said, “I don’t have time for a band,” and he said, “Meet the band later and listen to their CDs, and I guarantee you you’ll make time,” so I did and I was hooked right away.  I spent a month learning the tunes, and there you go.

TONY HIGBEE:  By the way, I expected him to come in and know like a few songs, but he learned everything, or pretty much everything, yeah.

***

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

LTHN:  I came across an old ad for an event called “Chemokaze.”  What was that about? 

TONY HIGBEE:  Chemokaze was a thing that started when I had cancer 12 years ago.  I had Hodgkins Lymphoma and you know when I was sick, a bunch of people stepped up and did a benefit for me and there was one here in Nashville, and one in Atlanta.

CODY HIGBEE:  There was one in Illinois, too.

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, they were all over the place, so I started trying to do cancer related benefits and charities to give back.  We as a band have kind of spearheaded it ever since it happened, so it’s kind of become an almost annual thing.  We’ll basically have a person, because sadly we all know somebody who is going through it, you know, so we’ll have a person in our orbit that is affected by it, so we’ll do a night for them and just invite a bunch of friends out, seasoned musicians, and see who is available and do an all-star band, and you know, just jam all night.  We have a great time and sometimes even our heroes will come out, so that’s the payoff for us that we pull off these amazing shows for this person who is dealing with their own battle and honestly, we just give them all the money at the end of the night that we raise to help go towards their expenses.  The Mercy Lounge (in Nashville) has been where we’ve done it for the last three years.

***

2019 PERFORMANCE WITH QUIET RIOT LEAD SINGER, JAMES DURBIN

LTHN:  Was that for the same cause –the show you did at Mercy Lounge this past winter with THEE Rock and Roll Residency and James Durbin (Lead Singer of Quiet Riot)who sang a Judas Priest song with you?  How did that collaboration come about?

TONY HIGBEE:  That was different.  That was for Jeremy, the Residency’s guitar player.  We all just did a couple songs at that, and yeah, James Durbin sang with us.  We have known Jeremy for years.  That was a benefit for Jeremy of Thee Rock and Roll Residency. 

JOSH DUTOIT:  Jeremy was one of the first people I met, when I moved to Nashville.

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, we’ve known Jeremy for years, and I actually played in his old band called Shazam briefly before Caprice got going, and we’ve just always been good friends….but it was related to his Diabetes, and we just all chipped in and helped out at that benefit and did a couple songs.   

JOSH DUTOIT:  …and we’ve known Durbin from other things.

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, Quiet Riot is where I met him, you know, and I’ve known him for a couple of years now. 

* * *

NEW VISION FOR THE BAND

LTHN:  When you left Caprice, you mentioned that you wanted a fresh start or a fresh sound, I guess, with The East Side Gamblers.  How would you describe those different elements?

CODY HIGBEE:  I would say that really with the change of members…I mean, me and Tony were in Caprice, but each member brings their own influences, and as a result, you get the sound you have whereas with The East Side Gamblers when it first started, and grant it, it’s grown — it developed into its own thing since then. It was more of what we grew up listening to …influencing us instead of — I guess Caprice was more current and sign of the times.

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, like a modern act of Rock.  In a lot of ways, this is a lot more.  For a lack of a better description, classic 70s kind of rock attack. 

CHRIS BREWER:  I always tell people when they ask what our music is, “it sounds like 70s AC/DC with Thin Lizzy guitar harmonies.” 

TONY, CODY & JOSH:  Yeah, we’ll take that!

***

THE KISS KRUIZE – 2013

LTHN:  I read that you performed with Kiss in 2013 on the “Kiss Kruize.”  Tell me about that.

TONY HIGBEE:  What about it? 

LTHN:  Any fun stories you want to share?  (laughter erupts in the room).

TONY HIGBEE:  We did that about six years ago.  That was before Chris was even in the band.  Yeah, we did the Kiss Kruize. 

CODY HIGBEE:  I love Australians! (more laughter).   We met a group of people that were on board from Australia, and they just immediately took a liking to us before they even really checked out the band, before we even played.  Then, they got hooked onto the band, which is awesome, but they spent the rest of the cruise literally, every time I’d walk by, this one guy in particular Frank, and I forget the other fella’s name, but they would shout, “You want another shot of Jack Daniels?” (Cody says with an Australia accent-pretty good one, too).  It would just be every time you walk by — it could have been 8 o’clock in the morning, it could have been one o’clock….it didn’t matter. 

JOSH DUTOIT:  He would drink 50 of them…

CODY HIGBEE:  Yes, it was amazing to watch that man drink!

JOSH DUTOIT:  They kept handing them out. 

CODY HIGBEE:  Yeah!  It was fun on a lot of levels, and I am glad we had the opportunity to do it. 

***

ON THE TOPIC OF STAGE FRIGHT

LTHN:  What about performance anxiety?  You guys seem so comfortable on stage.  Do you ever get that anymore?

CHRIS BREWER: I do, yeah, a touch of it on any given night. 

JOSH DUTOIT:  It seems like playing in front of bigger crowds is better than playing in front of smaller crowds. 

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, I would agree with that.  I think bigger crowds are almost easier.  Well, they’re sort of faceless…  When you get in a smaller club you can literally make eye contact and look around at every person and find out if they are really paying attention or having fun or enjoying it.  Then, you tend to zero in on those things and you start thinking about that stuff, when, and in my case at least, I should be thinking about what the next lyric is.  I mean every once in awhile, yeah, but the more we do it, the more comfortable we get with it. 

JOSH DUTOIT:  At least for me it’s a lot more challenging in Nashville to play in front of all of our friends.  Everybody that we know…everybody plays something, and everybody’s good, so when you get up on stage in front of those people, it brings a different element.  If we are playing like regional shows, we don’t really know hardly anybody, except for when we play in places kind of close to our home town, like in Illinois…  For me and Chris, it’s fine…there is a whole different vibe with that. 

LTHN:  Could you describe any difference in what it’s like to perform for an audience say in Illinois and crowds here?

TONY HIGBEE:      I don’t want to use the word “jaded,” because it’s not, but you hear a lot of people talk about playing in L.A. who are playing to a bunch of people with their arms crossed  saying, “OK, show me something I haven’t already seen.”  Nashville’s got a lot of guys that are musicians and they may be watching with a more critical eye, versus if you just get outside of this town, you know, where there’s not so many musicians per capita like there is here, and people hear everything as a whole and don’t put all the focus on the munitia, the little stuff, and they are a little more vocal and a little more rowdy in a lot of cases.

***

SONG WRITING

LTHN:  One of my favorite songs of yours is, “Let It All Bleed Out.”  Can you tell me what the inspiration was for that song?

TONY HIGBEE:  Probably not.  (Tony laughs).  Really, I don’t remember what the headspace that I was in when I wrote it or what even was the nebulous for the idea.  I am just being honest with you, I am sitting here thinking about it right now, going what was it?  I don’t know, but I also try not to — and some of these guys were talking about some stuff recently as far as writing lyrics – there’s usually some sort of inspiration or something that sparks when I start writing a lyric, but I try not to write anything that knocks too obnoxiously on the head just because, you know, I like leaving it semi-open for people’s interpretation. Usually, if the emotion is there, people can usually tie in something…

JOSH DUTOIT:  …find a way to relate to it.

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, find a way to relate to it that pertains to their own life. 

***

FAVORITE VENUES

LTHN:  What are your favorite venues to play at?

TONY HIGBEE:  I love playing here (referring to The Basement East), the District Sound, I love Mercy Lounge…those are kind of our jams.  Both the guys that book us, Mike and John here and at the Mercy, both are spectacular and show all the love for the Rock. Outside of here, we played some shows over in Knoxville at a place called the Open Chord, and that was a great show, a lot of fun, a great crowd.  We did some shows up in Illinois…we did the Rascalls and they treated us great..  That was a great gig, great crowd…we were playing up there with a friend of ours’ band, called Hong Kong Sleepover, and they are a killer band.  Both the shows were great and just a lot of fun… and the thing we did in Atlanta? 

JOSH DUTOIT:  Yeah, Center Stage in Atlanta.

TONY HIGBEE:  What was the name of that festival?

JOSH DUTOIT:  It was Rocklanta in Atlanta.  Yeah, it was put together by a fella named Brad Lee, who put it together really well…an awesome dude that took care of us…took care of everything to a “T.”  He did everything on the front end that he said he was going to do, so it was nice to go play something like that and not have any weird, unexpected hurdles, hiccups or anything like that.  The man had his stuff together, and it really showed.  It was a great show, and it was a great festival. 

***

THOUGHTS ON TRACKS AND AUTO TUNE

LTHN:  What are some of the things you don’t like, or want to complain about with regard to the music industry?

TONY HIGBEE:  I don’t like to complain a lot.  I’ll just say this.  As far as live music, I hate tracks.  I hate backing tracks.  I hate seeing bands using backing tracks because it cheapens it and it kind of sucks…unless you’re a techno artist.  Outside of that…

LTHN:  How about Auto Tune? 

TONY HIGBEE:  Yeah, it sucks.  (everybody laughs).  I mean, you know – and I literally had this conversation two days ago some friends from Evanescence.  We were talking about Olivia Newton John and the Xanadu soundtrack, specifically.  We were talking about her vocal performance on that soundtrack, and you can laugh about the movie and you can laugh about it all you want, but that soundtrack is basically– you have ELO with her singing. If you listen to that, her voice is pristine and her pitch is phenomenal.  There was no Auto Tune back then, that was all going to tape.  It’s very rare that you find artists like that …that’s what made people stand out back then, their ability.  Like now, you can literally just take a pretty face who can’t sing her way out of a wet paper sack, and then just tune them and give them tracks live.  The talent’s not there, especially if somebody else is writing all their songs for them.  It muddies the waters a lot.  There’s no real embrace  of what true talent really is, and it causes people to focus on all the wrong things.

***

VISION MOVING FORWARD

LTHN:  What is your vision for the future.  Where would you like to see the band go?

JOSH DUTOIT:  That’s a loaded question.

CODY HIGBEE:  Ideally, I would love to see everybody be able to walk off their jobs …you know, we’ll see what happens. 

TONY HIGBEE:  You know we all have lives.  There’s people, family and stuff like that, so we are realistic about what it is we can and can’t do at the moment, but as to whether we aspire to do something else at some point, it’s just got to make sense for everybody.  The thing I think that keeps us coming back is that we love playing together and love making music together. 

***

NASHVILLE’S ROCK AND ROLL UNDERGROUND

LTHN:  I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine that asserted there has been a resurgence of Rock and Roll here in the Nashville Underground.  Do you agree with that?

JOSH DUTOIT:  I think every little bit helps, I mean, at least in Nashville, there’s a lot of younger people out there digging into it and it’s starting to show.  Honestly, I think music can use all the help it can get.

TONY HIGBEE:  I feel like when I moved here 16 years ago there were five rock bands here, and two of them were good.

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Social Media: You can check out The East Side Gamblers on Facebook — @theeastsidegamblers, and on their website: https://theeastsidegamblers.bandcamp.com

You can download their music on Spotify.