St. Charles band Kampfire Kowboys is showing off its country side even more these days after frontman Tom Colton reformed the group in 2010.
The band will bring its fiery country sound on Nov. 16 to River Rockhouse, 106 S. Riverside Ave., St. Charles.
Six String Crossing also is on the bill. The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $7, available at www.river-rockhouse.com.
Kampfire Kowboys’ current lineup consists of Colton on lead vocals and guitar, Dave Piper on bass and vocals, fiddle player Ray Henaughan and drummer Marcus Suarez.
Kane County Chronicle reporter Eric Schelkopf had the chance to interview Colton about the band’s latest activities.
Eric Schelkopf: You guys just played at the United Center in Chicago, prior to a Chicago Bulls game. How was that experience?
Tom Colton: It’s almost like a paid rehearsal. You just kind of play, and have a good time. It’s nice.
ES: Of course, you guys will play at River Rockhouse this month. What should people expect that night?
TC: A fired up show. The whole show pretty much revolves around myself and the fiddle player.
It’s all about guitars and fiddles, and we trade solos. The whole process changed when I put the band back together.
A lot of the songs we are doing, we either incorporate fiddle into them, or we pick songs that have a dominate fiddle and dominate guitar.
We’re sort of a rock show with a traditional country bottom. We don’t do Johnny Cash like Johnny Cash. We kind of do it our way.
We’ll do some ’90s stuff like The Mavericks. I think I sing it well, so we’ll throw some of that in.
The only thing I guess we don’t do is pop country. We’re just not like that at all. We’re mostly traditional country-rock, or something like that.
But it is different from what a lot of everybody else is doing. There are a lot of country bands out there that pretty much sound like rock bands.
We’re kind of like that, but we are a little more traditional. We bill ourselves as country the way you like it, fired up fiddles and smoking guitars.
ES: What do you like about the fiddle?
TC: I just like hearing it. A fiddle has its own character and style to it. When he’s soloing, I’m just playing rhythm and enjoying it.
I can just sit back and just play guitar, and he just goes off.
ES: So, the band plays both covers and original songs?
TC: Mostly covers now. We put together different songs, and kind of make them are own. We still play some Kampfire Kowboys songs, like “Arizona Emily” and “My Pretty Little Baby and Me.”
I’ve been playing around with thinking of other ways to write some fiddle-guitar stuff, either with vocals or some instrumentals, too. There are certain things that I have in my mind that I think the band could do as we move along.
