Bobbie K Owens, vocals/guitar;
Dave Merris, Drums/Percussion/vocals;
Mike Fox, gtr/keys/vocals;
Jerry Mihay, gtrs/vocals;
Robert Hay-Smith, bassist
Influences
Drive By Truckers, Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Neil Young Allman Bros., Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Whitney Houston. OK skip the last one!
The Luckies are a Columbus, Indiana based original band led by nationally known visual collage artist Bobbie K. Owens. Rounding out the band are Jerry Mihay on lead guitar; Mike Fox ..boards and guitar, Indianapolis based Dave Merris, a veteran of the Carl Storie Band and Rods and Cones, on drums/percussion; and native Brit Robert Hay-Smith on bass. Only singer/rhythm guitarist Owens is still relatively new to the music game, but it is his charismatic notions, driven poetry and story songs that drew these vets to the band and music Owens calls ‘twilight rock. ” Owens’ musical innocence and enthusiasm have recharged the batteries of the “grizzled veterans,” as Mihay refers to the rest of the band.
“If we really didn’t feel like we were doing something special, we wouldn’t even be talking about it,” Mihay said. “There’s a lot of soul here, everybody loves what they’re doing.”
THE BEST OF WHAT’S NEW is clearly an album bathed in the cultural shakedown of the 1960s and 1970s, it benefits from the rock heroes who provided the baby boomer generation a strong soundtrack: The Allman Brothers, the Who, the Stones, Al Kooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, Lou Reed. These are nine story songs that push buttons. There are emotional dust-ups here, a charge to listeners to get involved or re-involved with their own personal integrity. Inspiration can come from something as big as Martin Luther King or as personal as Owens father’s old factory badge. “I’ve only written one or two love songs,” he said. “Most of them are what I call message music. I think they’re about searching, spiritual search. That seems to be the bottom core of my life with painting and everything else.”
Several videos and an entire live performance were shot to accompany the CD by Arizona based videographer David Brown of Vandal Productions. The ambitious video for "Black and White Thing" garnished some attention when it was posted and then shortly thereafter pulled from YouTube for being "too controversial." Check it out yourself!
As noted by Doug Showalter's piece in the Columbus Republic, "It’s tough to keep a band together, especially when members aren’t teenagers but instead the parents of teenagers. As such, they must juggle their musical ventures with their day gigs and family obligations. Besides his art career, Owens teaches at ABC-Stewart School. Mihay teaches social studies at Columbus North and East high schools. Fox works in software development. Merris works for a vendors’ service group in Indianapolis. Owens said his wife is amused by his late-in-life foray into rock ’n’ roll.” She said, ‘I’ve been struggling with you for 30 years as an artist, and now you’re playing music?’”
The Luckies CD/DVD is available through the bands website
www.luckiesband.com, CD Baby and at Karma Records.
Mindy Giles
Mindy Giles/publicist
916.447.6508 mingiles@aol.com
A second CD's worth of material was recorded during the last year- this batch of songs more stylisitcally diverse than the first. Although not having been throught the final mix and mastering process, several of these songs are available for listening and/or download here.
Be sure to introduce yourself to me at the fest...I will be backstage, frontstage, entrance, 1st aid station...ah man I will be everywhere!!! See you there!
Hey my fav rockin' uncle. I'm definitely going to find a way up to Fishers to see the band. Awesome job at getting to the finals man. See ya on the 6th!!
