Onstage, they don’t look like a traditional rock ‘n roll band. Sure, the seven members of Sweet Crude are kinda young and kinda scrawny and their clothes suggest a GAP-meets-Garanimals flare.
But they carry no guitars. Five of them play percussion. And yes, there’s a glockenspiel in the mix.
Sweet Crude sounds different too. They produce a sophisticated mixture of rhythm, classical strings, and musical theater that’s highly danceable and even educational. That’s because the band sings in English and Louisiana French – a language they’re learning on the job.
In just over two years, Sweet Crude has charmed audiences along the Gulf Coast, in Canada and at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Their song, Parlez-Nous a Boire has been featured twice on the FX program American Horror Story . And the band is currently working on a follow up CD to their 2013 EP Super Vilaine. Not bad for young people who, on any given day, could be mistaken for interns.
But Sweet Crude’s youth belies the band’s experience in music. Brothers Sam and Jack Craft are classically trained in violin and cello respectively. They’re also veterans of the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra — an organization directed by their father, John Craft. And the rest of Sweet Crude’s roster is similarly gifted.
Vocalist Alexis Marceaux says the band claims musical influences ranging from Talking Heads to The Carpenters to The Electric Light Orchestra and Carole King.
“I give all the credit to my parents because they just blasted Tapestry constantly,” Marceaux told Gwen. “We would clean house to Tapestry and The Carpenters.”
But the band is particularly grateful to Susan Cowsill and Russ Broussard, former members of the critically-acclaimed indie band, Continental Drifters. Cowsill and Broussard still tour together and frequently have invited members of Sweet Crude to perform with them.
“Getting to play with players of that quality and of that caliber but also that amount of giving and generosity musically and personally was life-changing in every possible way,” says Sam Craft. “It was my college as a musician. Everything else I’d done was high school.”
Sweet.
