Dallas Good had no specific genre in mind when he formed The Sadies in the mid-’90s in Toronto.
The guitar player had grown up in a musical family, the son of a member of the longtime Canadian folk and bluegrass family band The Good Brothers. As he and his brother Travis gravitated toward rock music and an eventual career in it – against their father’s wishes – they started experimenting with playing the music they listened to: surf rock, American psychedelic, Gram Parsons-style country, and garage rock and punk.
Now, a dozen or so records later – including some on which they serve as the backing band for the likes of Neko Case, Andre Williams, Jon’s Doe and Langford, Garth Hudson or Neil Young – they’ve carved out a sound that reflects those artists’ music while remaining fiercely independent and original.
The Sadies, who along with the Good brothers include Sean Dean on bass and Mike Belitsky on drums, will perform Tuesday at Animas City Theatre.
“We’ve never had any kind of plan whatsoever,” Dallas Good said from a tour stop in Canada. “ ... I suppose our early records were more dictated by our strengths at the time as well as our instrumentation – our strengths being we preferred instrumental music. We felt more comfortable writing it. We haven’t really reinvented ourselves since then, but luckily, we were able to be categorized in a giant, all-encompassing, swooping thing that is very forgiving.”
Touring behind their newest release, “Internal Sounds,” The Sadies have evolved as a band from the days when their first three releases were 20 or so 2- to 3-minute tracks of blistering surf rock and country. Those early releases served as audio documentation of what was being played on stage and were recorded quickly. As they’ve grown and moved away from short instrumental cuts, they’ve evolved into more serious musicians.
“We really didn’t start to do any experimenting until around our fourth record,” Good said. “We started to spend a little more time on crafting the music in the studio rather than just documenting it, which is something we were very adamant about doing for the first three albums. We get more confident in the styles we’ve usurped. It’s just a matter of doing our best to reinvent the same wheel every time.”
While often labeled lyrically as “dark,” as performers, The Sadies are a band that leaves it all on stage. Talent and professional performance far outweigh anything presumed “dark” with frenzied Link Wray power chords scattered between jangly country. It’s a cross of the Ramones, the Kinks and the Flying Burrito Brothers that’s far from dark.
“If I have any sense of humor whatsoever, it’s a dark one. It translates into certain lyrics,” Good said. “We’ve got a couple of miserable songs, but I don’t find them miserable. I don’t feel miserable when I tell those stories. Existentialism is all how you want to interpret it, right?”
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
Bryant’s Best
Saturday: John Denver tribute featuring John Adams Band, 7:30 p.m., $18/$27, Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 247-7657.
Tuesday: Surf, rock and country with The Sadies, 8 p.m., $15 advance/$20 day of show, Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Drive, 799-2281.
