The Wake

Question: How does one obtain the dream of becoming a celebrated band? Answer: hard work, dedication, and a love for the music. Cowboy Curtis, a home grown Minneapolis band, has done all of this and more to establish themselves as a fixture in the local music scene. By following the forming of their band, getting gigs, creating great music and putting out the coveted CD, the ambiguity of making music is revealed.

Forming a Band: Cowboy Curtis’s birth took place after Neal Perbix (vocals, guitar) started playing with Jake Hanson (vocals, guitar and keyboards) in high school. Submerged in their parents’ basement, the two started creating music. Neal also played drums, but his older brother, Nate, soon took over the rhythms after his return from college at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. The band stayed together through the transition to college, but they have been hit with adversity. While working on their self-produced album Observation / Assumptions, they lost their bass player to Mason Jennings. Confusion surrounded the album, but the band finished it and the experience taught Cowboy Curtis something. “After hitting a low you can turn it around and make it work,” said Nate as the band and I sat in Neal’s living room. With the addition of Ethan Sutton on bass, the group was complete once again.

Getting Gigs: Obtaining gigs is difficult in the beginning, and Neal knows this well. He started looking for them by calling up clubs. This wasn’t successful and the only offer came from the Red Sea, which said if Cowboy Curtis showed up, they could maybe get on the bill. Nate soon took over looking for gigs, and they got their first big one at the Pulse’s Smoke Free Saturdays, held at the Bon Appetite. After that, the group began creating relationships with other bands so as to network and work together to get gigs. “New Band Nights,” that many clubs offer, were also helpful. “It boils down to taking chances and being persistent,” said Nate.

Promotion is also a large part of being in a band and Cowboy Curtis does their own promotion by contacting radio stations and newspapers, putting up flyers, and giving out promotional CDs. However, the hard work of getting started paid off, and Curtis is on the playlist at KEXP, a radio station in Seattle. “It’s been fun, but frustrating. Playing the 400 Bar was a big deal to us,” said Neal. Jake expounded on that: “The first time playing big clubs where you’ve seen bands was gratifying. We’re investing in our musical souls.”

Creating Great Music: As I watched Curtis’s rehearsal in the whitewashed basement of Neal’s Dinkytown house, I couldn’t help but tap my foot and grin. The tempo changes, melodic guitar and vocals resonate to create joyous indie rock. The music is influenced by moments that can become biographical, revealing the life around the band. Each member listens to different kinds of music, but all the members agreed local bands such as Love Cars, Grickle Grass and 12 Rods are important to their music.

Smiles are exchanged between the notes. Rehearsals run for two hours once or twice a week. The band plays, then talks about business issues. “Sometimes it feels like a student counsel meeting,” explained Jake as he tuned his guitar. Curtis has lists of business issues that need to be handled and business responsibilities are distributed among the members so they don’t fall on one person. These responsibilities revolve around getting gigs, promotion, finances and other pragmatics.

The Coveted CD: A band can either pursue a record contract with a record company or self-produce an album. Success doesn’t just happen, and Cowboy Curtis did the latter. Observations / Assumptions took one year to complete and was recorded at Integral Studio in Saint Paul. “We wanted to put together something professional,” said Nate, and the band achieved this with hard work and their own money. Cowboy Curtis had saved all the money they ever made for their record. “We started a non-profit organization called Cowboy Curtis,” said Jake.

As for attaining the allusive record deal, one has to get their music out there by sending press kits to labels, radio stations and websites like www.cdstreet.com or www.midwestbands.com. Record companies also like bands that have put out their own albums, because it shows commitment and knowledge of the process of putting out music.

Conclusion: Cowboy Curtis’s hard work and dedication always comes down to the music and their dreams. “We want people to put our CD in their cars and drive around, just listening,” said Neal. They want to document life’s moments, but also “rock people’s asses,” as Ethan said. “Like in the musical sense,” Jake modifies. All their hard work goes toward these aspirations, which have gotten Cowboy Curtis where they are today.