James And The Rainbros

James and the Rainbros are beginning to draw attention for their searing blend of blues, folk, and good-old-fashioned hard rock. Riding the success of a popular internet music video, James Linck, Steve and Dave Kendzorski, and Chuck Vroom look to make serious headway in the Detroit music scene.

Detroit Fashion Pages caught up with James before the band’s headlining show at the Belmont, on April 12th.

DFP: How did the band get started?

James: I had been writing songs for a while, a couple months, so I wanted to get a full band on them. My buddy Steve (Kendzorski) and his brother Dave had been playing together since they were kids--drums, bass, and guitar. We knocked out three of four tracks and just threw them up on the internet, but it wasn’t quite a real band. A few months went by and we started getting requests to play shows. We added Chuck on bass and we started practicing to play a full set.

DFP: What does the band sound like?

James: We all have similar musical interests, but our favorites are all pretty different. Basically, we just try to put together some stuff that everyone can feel, without stepping on anyone else’s toes. It makes for a nice blend. We’ll try some folkier stuff and sometimes it just comes out rocking; some blues stuff that will come out heavier. We just want to explore all the things we like and take it to whatever place we want to take it.

DFP: Talk about the "Children of the Universe" video.

James: Seth (Welton) is an art and film student at U of M. He asked us if he could do something for "Children of the Universe" and the video he came up with was incredible. It took him like three months to do it, all in construction paper. He put it up on YouTube and one day we look and it was the number one featured video--like 300,000 hits. We got on the YouTube Underground contest and ended up getting an honorable mention, and our name on Good Morning America. The people at YouTube chose it as one of the best videos for 2006.

James and the Rainbros hope to have a recording out early this summer.

To see the video, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDZhOgPXzMI

Nick Degel
nick@detroitfashionpages.com - Detroit Fashion Pages

"James & The Rainbros is a Detroit, Michigan quartet with one of the more unusual sounds I’ve come across. Reggae elements mixed with the sort of free-flowing music we’ve become accustomed to hearing from The Counting Crows and even some hints of Led Zeppelin rear their heads on James & The Rainbros, their debut EP. Founded in 2006, James & The Rainbros have made a steady diet of the Metro Detroit club scene, but seem likely to expand their sphere with this EP.

James & The Rainbros opens with Apple Alphabet, a great bit of eclectic pop with a great hook. This is energetic, danceable Rock N Roll. Vocalist James Linck is enigmatic in sound and thoroughly memorable. His is a voice that isn’t pretty, but is eminently interesting to listen to and thoroughly memorable. Our Own Thing is my favorite track here because it has chutzpah. This is, quite literally, what Led Zeppelin would have sounded like with a Reggae rhythm section. Tiny Island also gets into the mix for top track with some unusual song construction and a Reggae/Roots Rock mix. Lord Got Bored is a bit of musical fluff, of the sort that would be a great concert tune. James & The Rainbros closes out with Chase You, a catchy but mellow reggae tune that will have you reaching for the playback button again.

James & The Rainbros are unique, mixing Reggae, Rock and Americana into something of a new blend. The EP James & The Rainbros is a highly entertaining and fun listen. Don’t be surprised if James & The Rainbros break out of Metro Detroit and start making their name on a larger scale in 2009."


http://wildysworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-james-rainbros-self-titled-ep.html
- Wildy's World

"James and the Rainbros is a funk-rock, four-piece fronted by falsetto-prone James Linck.
They have begun to attract a following. After shooting a video for their song, “Our Own Thing,” which includes footage from a concert that doubled as a fundraiser for the Detroit-based Student Environmental Action Coalition, the band released its first CD “James and the Rainbros EP” in 2009.
Standout tracks include the aforementioned “Our Own Thing,” “Lord Got Bord” and the catchy closer “Chase You.” The group was also the house band for downtown jazz bar The Rhino during this year’s Final Four party." - Matthew Gulley / The South End

This could be signed soon. It's strange and beautiful, moody and stark, I like it very much.

It simultaneously feels like Prince and that British folk guy that wrote the pretty song they used in the VW ad. There is a Bowie moment in the big change - and bridge that comes out of nowhere to fill the crafts needs -and I like all that too.

But, in my opinion, the intro is too long (if this could come in under 3:00 you'd really have something) and the drummer should move to half time in the verse to make more room for the coolio vocal and to help the swing factor. That would make the changes rock more too, when he went back to the hippy rock pattern.

This group is going places. Punch Ryan Adams out in a bar somewhere and you'll be a star by the run of the next Entertainment Tonight.

Emory Joseph
- Garageband.com

This Month's Featured Artist
-JAMES AND THE RAINBROS-
I first heard James and the Rainbros on detroitcity.com. The songs were ethereal, acidic, melancholic, beautiful, and had Willie Nelson's beat behind, step ahead timing. I'll toss impartiality out of the window, and tell y'all that I became a fan immediately. The songs themselves had transported me to an astral plane of eerie relaxation, so I was startled and delighted to find that their live show was totally different. They opened with blues, loud and mean blues, and kept the raw energy for the rest of their set. That show was in December and they've been writing and recording new material ever since.

-Phreddy Wischusen - light/d’arc Pontiac

People have varying interpretations of “soul, folk and funk music." For soul, they may see rapturous bodies giving themselves over to the rhythm with eyes squinted through sweat beads. For folk, maybe heartfelt lyrics delivered over heartwarming tones and steady, shuffling guitar strums. For funk, maybe sultry, growled and bending bass lines over shakable drums and guitars strutting that sunny toned riff.

With James & the Rainbros, you’ll get all three in the span of one song. To hear singer/guitarist James Link’s catlike wail wavering as much as bassist Ben Sturley’s stately slide, while drummer Dave Kendzorski slams it down like a car crusher and his brother Steve on guitar shudders and bows along with fiery, screaming riffs, you realize that they’re moving and shaking as much as the audience. “Soul” music is, at its barest, liveliness, an enjoyment and thus, a key ingredient to the Rainbros’ style.

“I dunno,” says Link, after casually listing Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, The Beatles and the Wailers as influences. “You can say it's funk rock and folk rock and indie rock, reggae rock and blah blah… In the end, I think we just like bowel-shaking bass lines, hard hitting drums, and dirty guitars ... and I get to wail and moan.”

Link grew up with piano lessons and did the high school band thing. Dad rocked folkies like Dylan and Cat Stevens on road trips. When he got a guitar at the end of high school, he came to the Kendzorski’s for drum and bass help for recording demos. On the popularity of an animated video (by friend Seth Welton) drawn to their song, they scored an opening slot at the Magic Bag in Ferndale. “It was a trip for me because I’d never really played in front of anybody before and that’s a pretty big venue,” said Link.

Those demos blossomed into a self-titled EP. With Sturley joining the band, collaboration and enthusiasm has strengthened. | RDW

James & the Rainbros • 10/9 • Blind Pig - Real Detroit Weekly

With an energetic, optimistic approach, James and The Rainbros use Reggae, AltRock, Soul and breezy Folk Pop to come up with its groovy sound. Dig Curtis Mayfield goes to college, learns to play Reggae and listens to a lot of Modern Rock. - Cincinnati CityBeat - September 11, 2009 - Cincinatti Citybeat