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Badwater "Southern Purified"
MP3 | Average VBR 237 Kbps 44100 Stereo | 44:23 | 96.98Mb
2003 | Genre: Country | Southern Rock | Red Dirt Rock | Songwriter

Red Dirt Rock is how Badwater describes their music. A full frontal, take no prisoners, southern fried rock & roll assault fueled by a twin guitar attack. This is not your daddy's Red Dirt Music. "We're not Red Dirt, we're Cherokee flintrock," stated guitarist Travis Downs. "There's not much red dirt in the Northeastern part of Oklahoma. There's a lot of rock and rivers and stuff like that. We're that rock that's sitting there in the middle of the red dirt pile."

Badwater hails from Tahlequah and consists of lead singer, songwriter and lead guitar slinger Bobby Wayne, guitarist Travis Downs, bassist Garron Marsh and Ronald "Arie" Bird on the drums. Being from Tahlequah they do see a difference in the music scene there compared to the Red Dirt stronghold of Stillwater and Central Oklahoma. "I think the scene is just a little more developed out here," said Garron. "The Western part of the state does seem a lot more receptive. Our shows here tend to be a lot bigger."

"There's a lot more rock and roll seems like in the Northeastern part of the state," added Travis. "Where as when you get into Stillwater, it's really country based. We do a lot of country too, we love country but we get a little farther out there with some of the guitar and stuff." "If we say we're strictly Red Dirt," added Bobby, "people are going to come out expecting this good ole red dirt band, and we play a lot of older Southern rock stuff like Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top."

Badwater's influences range from Zakk Wylde, Alex Van Halen, Bob Marley and Randy Crouch. Garron & Travis both did stints with Randy Crouch's band Flying Horse. "I started playing with him when I was about eighteen," Garron said, "so he really helped me develop my sound." "Randy Crouch took me on the road when I was still in high school," said Travis. "I'd get out of class on Friday, hop in the van, and we'd drive to Texas to open for somebody. I'd be in the back of the van studying on the way to the gig. Coming back, they'd drop me off Monday morning for school."

Guitarist Bobby Wayne and drummer Arie Bird are the senior members of the band. Garron & Travis joined a week before the band played the Red Dirt Music Awards show at the legendary Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa. "I thought it was an honor to go up and give an award with Bob Childers," said Bobby. "I thought that was the bomb. A big goal of mine was to play the Cain's Ballroom stage and right there, I fulfilled one of my goals."

The band's debut CD "Southern Purified" was recorded at Reel Time Audio in Denton, Texas back in March of 2003 and released the first week of August 2003. They basically produced it themselves. I asked them what was the hardest thing about the recording process. "Staying sober," laughed Bobby. "It's so stressful whenever you're doing any recording," added Arie, "because when you think it's perfect, you go back and listen to it and it's really not what you want. You try to make it just as perfect as you can. I think it turned out pretty good."

Track List:

01 - We're Through
02 - When Your Baby Leaves You
03 - Sweet River
04 - Mess Of Blues
05 - Southern Purified
06 - Ring The Bell.mp3
07 - Ride In The Country
08 - Too Late For Goodbye
09 - Country Life
10 - Reason For Leaving
11 - Find My Way

Download includes small front cover