Captain Howdy & The Sunset Serenaders released their debut album HOWDY REIGNS on August 2. The album description proclaims: “THE DEBUT PSYCHEDELIC FREAK-OUT.”
The 8-track album takes influence from many different areas of music including The Grateful Dead and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
Prior to the album’s release, four singles were released - “All For You” (2023), “La Llorona” (2023), “You Can’t See Me” (2024) and “Shady Grove” (2024).
Captain Howdy & The Sunset Serenaders are Keller Welton on guitar, Jon Chapel on drums and producer James Barnett on bass guitar.
LP: How did the band get started/how did everyone join?
Captain Howdy: Jon (drummer) and I (Keller/guitar) met in high school, and both came to KU for college. I ended up living in a duplex next to James (bass player/producer) and we started jamming on the weekends. Before we knew it, we had gigs and the band was going!
LP: What are the origins behind the band name?
CH: I'm from Dallas, Texas, and there was a great band from the area called Pearl Earl who wrote a dope-ass song called “Captain Howdy.” And then the Sunset Serenaders came from this Grateful Dead live show 8/27/74 in Veneta, Oregon. This show is great because there's a color film available of the whole thing, and after the song “He's Gone,” Bobby says to Jerry, ‘So we're changing our name to the Sunstroke Serenaders.’ And we just altered it a bit.
LP: Who are your influences?
CH: The moon, the sun, stars, the milky way galaxy, Andromeda, Trent Reznor, and The Grateful Dead.
LP: Tell me about your debut album HOWDY REIGNS. What was the writing/recording process like?
CH: It was extremely chaotic. We recorded in at least four spaces over the course of a year and a half. A lot of the songs are fairly old, having been written 2 years or more ago. But there's also a bunch of songs that we wrote while recording. We incorporated a lot of American Traditional Folk Songs like Cold Rain and Shady Grove. I (Keller) am the primary songwriter, but everyone contributes on every song. A lot of the songs have changed a lot since recording, too, because of their age.
LP: What are each of your favorite songs off the album?
Keller: “Pass Me By > Sleepyhead.”
James: “Shady Grove.”
Jon: “Cold Rain.”
LP: What’s next for you as a band?
CH: We are working on a bunch of Cumbia, bluegrass, dance music like the Mauskovic Dance Band, house, dub-reggae, and of course more psychedelic cowpunk. We record most of our live shows and are always in the process of mastering and releasing them as we go. Our next live album is Live At The Bottleneck, which features a 3-piece horn section, and a new studio recording of our song “Gankino Horo,” which is a traditional Bulgarian folk tune.
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