 "Photo: James Wooley")
Freshman Hunter Barron and his band, Red Hot and Blue, have the blues in their hearts and souls, and they’re willing to prove it to skeptics.
The Texas blues band consists of bass player and UTD political science freshman Hunter Barron, along with guitarist Alex Mitchakes and drummer Abdon Gonzalez, both Collin College students.
Red Hot and Blue came together a couple months ago to play for a Haiti benefit at Wizard’s Sports Bar. They went on stage with only two practices under their belt, and everything actually went pretty well, Barron said.
“Our first time playing, we were really gelling. It was real easy to feed off each other,” Mitchakes recalled.
After their first performance, the band decided to keep playing blues together. Band members believe it was their centralized point of styling and knowledge of the same artists that helped them become cohesive so quickly.
Barron said what differentiates the blues from other music is predictability. In most genres, one thing always follows another, whereas with the blues, you might not ever hear the same thing twice.
“What we’re feeling one night is not the same as any other night,” Mitchakes said. “It’s like you have a contract with the moment. If you lose sight of that, the music starts to fall apart.”
Mitchakes said when he is on stage he gets so enthralled by the music he feels that he’s in another world, and doesn’t really remember what happened while he was playing. It just happens and then it’s over.
“Me and Abdon are the backbone, and most anything Alex does is improvisation,” Barron said. “That’s really how you get the nitty-gritty, the real squeal, that howl that’s real hard to find in any other setting.”
The band doesn’t get respect from audiences in bars where blues music is usually played — not at first — because the members are unusually young, Barron said. It’s a lot of work every night, but it’s fun because they get to prove themselves every time they get on stage.
“People think, ‘if you’re 19, how can you feel the blues?’ You’ve got to be 50 and have no money and your wife has to have left you,” Mitchakes said. “It’s kind of hard to look legit because we’re so young, so we’re fighting against everyone to prove what we want to do.”
Since blues can be considered an older person’s genre, Red Hot and Blue members have had problems finding bandmates from their generation.
“It’s a dying genre,” Gonzalez said.
Mitchakes said it isn’t that younger people don’t like the blues, they just aren’t exposed to it because few young musicians have taken the style and made it their own. When they listen to blues music, they love it, it’s just the matter of getting more people involved.
Gonzalez knew the other two members separately, and they met after he offered to put a band together if Barron would agree to play bass.
Barron favors guitar, but said he would give bass the chance as long as Gonzalez was sure Mitchakes was the superior guitarist.
“He won that round,” said Barron with a smile. “I’ve been playing guitar for about 6 years, and bass a little less. I never really got into bass until we started this band, so I have to dig in and run fast because I can’t fall behind in this band.”
Members have played in different bands that focused on other genres, such as rock or alternative. Mitchakes says finding people that like the same music and can play it is hard, especially for the blues.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to play with guys my age and actually sit down and play the blues and have it be a respected thing, “ said Barron. “It’s a nice change of pace.”
Red Hot and Blue has some studio time set up to record a demo. Barron said the demo isn’t for an album, but to market the band so they can start playing for different venues.
Barron said after their demo is recorded, they plan to bring their youthful take on the blues to UTD with an appearance in The Pub.
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