Backstage of a live streaming rock show: no crowd, no applause but plenty of harmony

It’s Monday afternoon at The Burl and the setting is definitely not business at as usual. The popular Distillery District music venue looks more like a storage facility with rows of folded chairs and tables, unplugged arcade machines and a bar that sits alone without patrons or bartenders. But there is activity here.

The members of the Northern Kentucky band Brother Smith are at work onstage, setting up as they would for any other show. But this isn’t a traditional performance and aside from the three or four video and audio techs in the house preparing to record their set for the Railbird Sessions at The Burl series of online streaming concerts, there is no audience due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Live rock ‘n’ roll without an appreciative crowd? Without applause, even? How did that feel?

“I didn’t care,” said Brother Smith, guitarist/vocalist Wesley Smith who co-founded the Parks Hills-based group four years ago with drummer/fiddler Aaron Smith (yes, his brother). “It didn’t affect me at all. I was just so happy to be playing with my friends. We got together that afternoon and rehearsed, ate together and then played our show together. It was nice. For about six hours, we got to step back into everything we had going on before everything shut down.”

The producers of the Railbird Festival, with help from Visit Lex, have been presenting pre-recorded streaming concerts on Friday’s from the otherwise empty stage of The Burl.

Once assembled onstage, Brother Smith eased into an hour’s worth of rock and pop fare that reached across styles and generations. When flautist/saxophonist Trevor Caddell soloed over a loose Southern groove, the sound recalled the early days of the Marshall Tucker Band. A few tunes later, Wesley uncorked a winding guitar break with the kind of jazz underpinning you found within Larry Carlton’s solos on Steely Dan’s famed late ‘70s recordings. From there, avenues of folk, rock, country, soul and various points in between are explored through a selection of original compositions, many of which will be featured on single and album projects set for release over the next year.

“Each song is different, but the less we try to make it a thing, the more it just has its own space, the more it allows everyone else to feel it and perceive it,” Wesley said. “I know for me, I hear a song and I put it into either a bluegrass or a rock band filter first, because that’s how I want to hear it.”

Brother Smith’s music is hardly defined by those two genres, though. At one point during the set, Aaron Smith soloed on fiddle while keeping time with a kick drum.

“He’s pretty amazing,” older sibling Wesley remarked. “Aaron’s always had the best ear of anybody I know in being able to pick up things really quick. I was probably 13 or 14 and had been playing guitar for about two years. I started showing him some stuff because I had some ideas, some acoustic guitar things. I remember him being able conceptualize and play it really fast. But the idea of singing harmony? He could just do it. These were simple ideas, but still. He was only 8 or 9 years old. He’s always had an extraordinary sense of rhythm, too.”

The vocal makeup distinguishes Brother Smith’s music, as well. While the two brothers handle the bulk of the lead singing, a third vocalist, Amberly Winfrey fills out the sound. The harmonies are solid, but the compositional design reaches beyond that with the three vocalists often switching lead duties from verse to verse within the same song. At times, Caddell adds in a fourth voice.

“That’s fun for me. I think it is for everyone, too. The full weight of the music isn’t on just one vocalist. I like to sing harmony, too. So does Amberly and so does Aaron. Just for own sakes, we get to play multiple roles the whole time. I’m trying to get Amberly to sing a lot more. I’m primarily the lead vocalist because I write most of the songs and because Aaron can sing the high harmonies easier than me. Everybody can really make it their own.”

Logistics plays a somewhat restrictive role in Brother Smith’s performance plans. The Smith brothers still call Park Hills home. Winfrey (from Cincinnati) and Caddell (from Erlanger) currently reside in Nashville. Bassist Chris Justice lives in Ashland. The brothers made a stride to simplify that by relocating to Lexington last spring. Then the pandemic hit.

“Back in March, we moved to Lexington – for a week. A whole week. Then, in two days we lost two months of work. Luckily, we were able to get out of that situation. The landlords we worked with were real nice. We moved all our stuff down there and it became like, ‘I don’t know where we’re going to work here.’

“Other than not getting to play, everything else has been okay. We’ve done live streams, small shows here and there and it’s worked out. A lot of people are struggling far worse than we are. I just miss the culture of it, the running around and seeing people. A lot of the friends that I’ve made have been through working. That’s when we would see each other, when we’re all working. I miss that quite a bit.”

Brother Smith

Railbird Sessions at The Burl streamed performance

When: Premieres 7 p.m. Aug. 28

Where: facebook.com/visitlex

This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 11:21 AM.