Entering the music scene in early 2011, Water Liars was created when Andrew Bryant and Justin Kinkel-Schuster began recording a few early versions of songs together.
“We got together for a weekend,” said Kinkel-Schuster, frontman and songwriter for Water Liars. “We liked what we did so much, so we decided to make something out of it.”
What was started that day three years ago has come to be a three-man, Mississippi-based group called Water Liars. The group is made up of Kinkel-Schuster on lead vocals, Bryant on drums and G.R. Robinson on bass.
Not wanting to categorize themselves into one genre, the band utilizes a mixture of heavy influences to create their folky and oftentimes aggressive rock ’n’ roll sound.
“It’s basically just a sort of mix of all the music we grew up with,” Kinkel-Schuster said. “There’s rock ’n’ roll, soul, country and all this different stuff that gets in your head as you grow up. We’re basically a rock ’n’ roll band that has an emphasis on good writing.”
Transitioning smoothly from sultry love ballads to intense rock anthems, the group knows how to play every angle of the music field.
However, the group has had its fair share of difficulties throughout its short and successful career.
“Pretty much any difficulty you can think of, we’ve dealt with it,” Kinkel-Schuster said. “There’s no school or classes to prepare you for what we do. You just have to figure it out as you go.”
With a recently released album out and a successful tour underway, the crew seems to be well on their way to figuring it out.
Kinkel-Shuster invited all of Oxford to the show.
“We’re handsome dudes that play cool songs,” Kinkel-Schuster said. “Just come to hang out and have a good time. And, most importantly, enjoy the show.”
The music doesn’t end tonight, however, as Proud Larry’s will welcome Oxford-based group Kudzu Kings to the stage at 8 p.m. Halloween evening. The Kudzu Kings are no strangers to the music scene, having been together for more than twenty years and released many albums.
“I was just playing an acoustic show in Oxford by myself, and this guy kept showing up and playing bass with me,” said Tate Moore, Kudzu Kings singer and acoustic guitarist. “I couldn’t get him to leave, and before I knew it he showed up with a piano player, a drummer and an electric guitar player. Next thing you know we had the Kudzu Kings, and we started playing songs from 1994 on.”
The band can credit their unique Mississippi alt-country rock ’n’ roll sound to the different styles each player brought to the table, which included New Jersey reggae, New Orleans jazz and Ohio country. With the current indie rock mania, good ol’ down-home rock and roll can be hard to come by, but the Kudzu Kings provide something for the old soul in all of us.
“We play songs,” Moore said. “You’re going to come. You’re going to hear and understand the words, and you’re going to hear good stories and songs.”
And with the amount of professionalism that comes from playing for so long, the Kudzu Kings are able to now take chances with their music and have a good time in the process.
“We don’t try to take ourselves too seriously, “ keyboard player Robert Chaffe said. “It’s just a fun show, and we do interact with the audience a lot.”
Everyone is welcome to spend Halloween with the good time that is the Kudzu Kings.
“Forget the lights, forget the bass drops, and come out and hear some real music,” Moore said.
