Kansas blues rocker Cold Shot to play first show in Emporia

Courtesy of Cold Shot

Brock Schwien, Dave Kaleba and Aaron Thomas make up Kansas' Cold Shot. The band will be performing at Natasha's on Saturday.

The Kansas blues band Cold Shot will be playing Natasha’s on Saturday and for drummer Aaron Thomas it will be a homecoming.

Thomas was born and raised in Emporia, but this will be the first time his current band will be performing here.

“I grew up playing in Emporia with performing with Eric Murphy and Jake Bergstrom in a band called My Friend Bill,” Thomas said. “Though the group was mostly original songs, there was a huge influence from artists like Dave Matthews, Steve Miller band, and Johnny Cash.”

Thomas first met bass player Dave Kaleba and guitarist Brock Schwien at a jam session in Lawrence in the spring of 2006. The trio meshed well and have been playing together ever since.

“We played this big college party together,” Kaleba said. “The gig went great, and both of us were looking to start playing around town more, so we decided to start booking shows and dove in head first.”

“I have been playing with Dave in different groups for several years,” Thomas said. “It felt very natural for the three of us to work together. We seemed to each bring our own experiences to the table.”

The group describe themselves as “a little Muddy Waters, throw in some Stevie Ray Vaughn, add a Jimi Hendrix and melt it together.” But the band’s main influence is traditional blues music.

“I grew up listening to the blues greats thanks to my parents and older brothers living in Chicago, but never really consistently performed it prior to meeting Brock,” Kaleba said. “I’ve always had a strong root in the music due to my background in jazz and active listening to the genre, but really can thank my band mates for providing me yet another creative outlet.”

“A lot of people have the wrong perception of blues,” Thomas said. “Blues has no boundaries of emotion or intensity, performers have complete expressive control. It’s the right combination of people, with the ability to express themselves through music, that makes good music.”

The band shows their appreciation for the genre through their covers and their original music.

“I grew up listening to classic rock, specifically the Beatles, from a very young age,” Schwien said. “I think the first original blues music I heard probably came through musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and I listened not knowing the history of anything blues related.”

“Blues is America’s music,” Thomas said. “Jazz, rock, country, virtually any style of music that has been considered pop culture at one time in America, has definitive roots in blues.”

“I think my biggest fascination with the blues has been the fact that you have to be introduced to the blues by people who actually know about it,” Schwien said. “Or you have to do some searching on your own to find it, because let’s face it, modern pop culture and MTV aren’t going to introduce anyone to the blues.”

Although Cold Shot is primarily a blues act, the band isn’t afraid to mix other genres into their set lists.

“We throw in some more modern tunes in our gigs to mix things upOriginals, songs from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer and more but they have slipped my memory at this time.”

“I like to think of our music as blues rock,” Schwien said. “But we do a wide variety of tunes in our sets, from blues to reggae, modern and classic rock, funk, jazz. I really think our sound is unique because I come from a blues and rock background and Aaron and Dave come from classical and jazz backgrounds.”

Recently, the band has been recording their live performances and have posted the recordings on their MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/coldshotku.

“We recorded a show in Winter Park while we were on a Ski Resort Tour this past January,” Thomas said. “and because of the higher quality of live recording, we haven’t felt a pressing need to record in a studio setting. But this is something we’ve been toying with. No definitive plans but maybe a little farther down the line.”

Right now the band is concentrating on playing live shows, having fun and not worrying about getting a record deal.

“I think people who have dreams of becoming a star do not have a clue as to what is really out there,” Thomas said. “How many talented musicians there are in this world. If you can’t afford to buy your way into the music industry, everything else is just luck.”

Cold Shot will be performing at at 10 p.m. on Saturday at Natasha’s, 627 Commercial.