Bourbon Street Bar is revving up for the performance of Ben Rector featuring Alpha Rev on Thursday, April 4.
Alpha Rev is an American alternative rock band from Austin, Texas, that was formed in 2005 by singer-songwriter Casey McPherson, and their performance at Bourbon Street will promote their newest album Bloom that was released Tuesday, March 19.
"I love big sound. I love big expansive melodies," McPherson said. "We are kind of infusing that with America folk and American country. You know, the older country stuff like Johnny Casino and Johnny Cash."
McPherson said the band also draws from Tom Petty on some of the songs and Radiohead in terms of melody and harmony. The group has released three albums including Bloom, and they are on tour often.
Along with McPherson, Jeff Bryant, Zak Loy and Tabber Millard make up the sounds of Alpha Rev, and they don't just play the guitar and drums. Alpha Rev uses the piano, organ, mandolin and lap and pedal steels in their music.
"So we are a four piece, but we carry twice as much gear with us, because we are switching instruments a lot," McPherson said.
Tinizia Bentley, senior in theater, said she loves Alpha Rev. She first heard one of their songs one morning on VH1's 'You Oughta Know.'
"I guess I would call them alternative," Bentley said. "If I could compare them to another band I would probably compare them to Yellowcard, but I would only compare them to Yellowcard because they are a band that has a fiddle. Yellowcard also has a fiddle, and they kind of play the same genre of music."
Bentley said she would really like to see Alpha Rev at Bourbon and that she didn't even know they would be there, but thinks students should not expect to be able to dance if they attend because that isn't their type of music.
"I really liked it. It was pretty, so I further investigated them and really liked everything I heard," Bentley said. "The lyrics that they have for the songs, it's just beautiful. Like any song that you listen to of theirs is like thought out. It makes you feel something. It's not simple. It's like you actually have to listen to understand what they are talking about."
McPherson says his inspiration for songs comes from the way he feels. It really helps when he has gone through something really awesome or really terrible to start cracking a melody and start cracking a lyric open.
"Bloom is really dealing with getting around or getting through internal conflict whether it be internal inside yourself or internal like a close relationship," McPherson said. "A lot of times that's how we figure out who we are and what we are about going through the fire, especially fire in this case that deals with internal conflict and external close circle."
An experience is what McPherson said he hopes Alpha Rev's performance gives the Bourbon Street audience.
"Hopefully a little bit of a tonic experience in terms of different sounds and emotional melodies, and an emotionally high-energy show," McPherson said.
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