Tom McBride: Guitars/Vocals
Chad Fisk: Piano/Keyboard
Colin Crawford: Saxophone
Andrew Toussaint: Drums
Doug Dietrich: Bass
Influences
"Like a Lion," the first full-length album from area singer-songwriter Tom McBride, goes in multiple directions within the context of folk rock. . . Listenable, danceable and fascinating. A winner." - OnTap Magazine (www.ontaponline.com/article/11534)
"Tom McBride is a traveling man. Originally from Boston, the singer-songwriter spent also some time in Nashville before laying down roots around these here parts.
From the sound of his songs, it seems his time in Tennessee served him well — influencing the band’s blend of folk, pop, rock, americana and soul. After self releasing an EP called Headed For in 2007, he invited some DC-area players to round out his band. The result is The Whig Party, a tightly knit group of musicians with clear chemistry.
“Cutting up LA”, the first single off of their latest album Like a Lion, is a really upbeat number I’m sure goes over really well with the crowds at their live shows." - All Our Noise .. (www.allournoise.com/2009/06/first-listen-the-whig-party-like-a-lion/)
"Take a listen to Tom McBride and the Whig Party and you’ll find a band that builds on a mix of country and rock with modern sensibilities. Their songs are rooted in solid instrumentation, steady rhythms and easy going choruses. This self-proclaimed five-piece rock, Americana/alt-soul band from Washington, DC, is keeping busy this summer with the release of their new album “Like A Lion” and local shows at Iota and Nats Stadium." - District of Sound (www.districtofsound.com/archive/qa-with-tom-mcbride-and-the-whig-party.html)
"The quintet hails from DC, and their immediate influences that come to mind are Bruce Springsteen, Spoon, Soundgarden, Drive By Truckers and The Band. Frequently playing local venues like DC9 clearly helped bolster the 130-person turnout for a late show on a cold and rainy Tuesday. They opened with “Cheap Thrill”, a crowd-pleasing number dripping with pop sensibility and a catchy chorus. When they launched into their homage to Southern rock (a genre they sound most comfortable in) “Natchez” (Southern Odyssey) I was fixated on keyboard player Chad Fisk’s flawless key-work."
- DC Sports Fan (http://www.dcsportsfan.com/article.aspx?aid=2462)
"The band has a distinctly southern vibe . . the music picks up influences starting somewhere in the blue-grass tradition of the Smokey Mountains, traveling down through the hills to Nashville with its sliding melodies, galloping country-western cadences and the slow rhythm of the blues, and dipping as far south as the Louisiana Bayou with some light Zydeco. Smooth and consistent, McBride’s voice is multi-dimensional and occasionally seems to change as the textures of his songs do. . . and McBride is also a gifted poet. Not afraid to test the vocabularies of his listeners, he tells musical tales that exercise the imagination, and tempt the brain to intellectualize and interpret, though the power of the music allows the mind to save the over-thinking for the silence that inevitably follows a night of good music.
Like those of our greatest folk singers, McBride’s topics run the gamut from bar fights to serial killers to the passing of loved ones. The pieces offer so much more than the regular heartbreak and lust to which so many singers often turn, though when he does visit these themes, his take on them is more articulate than that of many of his contemporaries.
In the spirit of Christmas, half of all proceeds from the evening went to Bread for the City, a food bank that serves the less-fortunate of the DC metro area.
Anyone who wants to hear a local DC band with copious talent and minimal pretense needs to check them out while they can still seen at small clubs in the area without the worry of huge crowds or exorbitant ticket prices. These guys are going places.
- DC Music Blog Shannon Madden (http://www.myspace.com/sjmadden)
Purchase Like A Lion and Tom McBride's solo EP - Headed For, @ iTunes, RealRhapsody, Amazon.com, Napster and other digital music sites
kick ass, your music makes me want to eat the skin off of someone's face, and then puke it up and wear it as my own face, so keep rocking;] Hope to roll with you on some concerts!
Hey Tom n Co. Charlie here from THE SKETCHES. Psyched for our last second acoustic show together @ IOTA friday night! Checked out your tunes. I'm diggin "What You Have Not Learned" good tune, hasta manana! -Charlie and THE SKETCHES
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