Friday’s festival headliner Rufus McBlack is “the next #1 best band on earth”

Friday’s festival headliner Rufus McBlack is “the next #1 best band on earth”

By Fran Thompson
“Yeah. Put that in the story just to see how people react,’’ said Foley High grad Clayton Blackwell about the quote in the headline above.
Blackwell’s taken-out-of-context point is that Rufus McBlack, the band he pushes from behind his drum kit when he is not playing with his other local band, the Destinations, is going to have more than enough tongue-in-cheek fun on stage to share with its ever growing fanbase.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We are silly on stage and there is a lot of fun stuff happening when we play,’’ Blackwell said. “We are more about having a good time than being the next #1 best band on earth.’’
Along with lead guitarist Johnny McCann, a Gulf Shores High grad, and a bass guitarist, Daphne’s Rufus Ducote, who also plays with Grayson Capps’ band, Blackwell has created a sound that is hard to pigeonhole into a genre, but easy to consume.
“The days of us loading up a van, sleeping in the van and going on tour are long gone away. But we like what we are doing and being creative, and people are digging it,’’ Blackwell said.
“It’s great that we get to play live to our friends. But even if no one was listening, we would still get together and play because we enjoy it. I am confident in that.’’
That there are only three players on stage sharing their joy through loud, heavy metal tinged rock ‘n roll is exactly the band’s appeal.
“I think we have a high energy show that takes you on a journey with a lot of dips and vibes and stories and elements to our songs. That is the experience we bring to every show,’’ Blackwell said.
McCann and Blackwell made some noise together locally and on tour in the metal band Manuscript Division just past the turn of the century.
McCann and his wife Caitlin then moved to Southern California in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan mainly for its great surfing beaches. The Pleasure Isle native also found himself as a guitarist during his 12 years living near Ventura.
“There were so many good players around me in California that I got better at the guitar while I was out there,’’ he said. “Growing up, I just wanted to play metal and speed stuff. But in California, I mellowed out a lot and learned to play solos and be a little more dynamic in my playing. I learned a lot out there.’’
When home to visit, McCann would get together with Blackwell to jam. And Blackwell recruited Ducote before he even heard him play live.
The band’s first gig was supposed to be at Big Beach Brewery. But when they arrived, they found manager Ryan Shamburger in rubber boats trying to deal with a broken sewage pipe.
“I had only met Rufus once and we had never played together,’’ McCann said. “When the gig was cancelled, we went back to Clayton’s house and had our first rehearsal. It was like fireworks. We all knew at that point that we had to do something with this. It was instant, and this was before we even had material.’’
“We jammed for hours, and we all thought that this is cool. This could be a lot of fun,’’ Blackwell added. “We had such good chemistry as friends and especially when it came to writing. We just gelled.’’
Rufus McBlack immediately started writing songs and started playing occasional shows at Big Beach Brewery.
“We knew we could always fall back on improvisations to fill out sets to keep it interesting,’’ McCann said. “We were just kind of winging it.’’
The band now has three releases of original music and continues to work out songs while rehearsing in Ducote’s one room cabin in Magnolia Springs that Blackwell said has an almost mystical vibe.
McCann, who Blackwell used to follow as a pre-teen when McCann was leading heavy metal Life Left while still at GSHS, said recording the songs the band writes immediately is important.
“Music moments come and go and then are gone forever. Subconsciously, the song is going to change through time as you change as a person,’’ he said. “I’m a big proponent of recording the first idea before it becomes too polished or we just get tired of it. It captures the moment when the song is in its most innocent form.
“I like to record songs to make memories as they are,’’ he added. “We know they are not going to sell a bunch, but to have documentation of that energy is awesome.’’
“Most of the songs we write don’t have a structure. It’s not pre-determined what it is going to sound like. We don’t put restraints on what it should sound like,” Blackwell said.
“We want a variety. It could be dancy or groovy with some heavy metal. Some hip-hop grooves,’’ he added. “We just jam and wait for something to catch our ear. And we start building a song off that one idea. Sometimes Johnny and Rufus surprise me with something in the middle of a jam. It’s so much fun.’’
“I’ll be sitting around doodling and play something I like and I’ll show Rufus and Clayton and they add something to it. At the end of the night, I’ll put some lyrics to it, or Clayton will do some random fill and I’ll ask him to do it again so I can add to it,’’ McCann said. “Or Rufus will do a crazy bass line that he wrote that is all over the place. Sometimes there is a whole song. There are no rules to how we do it.”
Rufus McBlack has booked gigs in Louisiana and Birmingham in late spring and they will continue to play every couple of months at Big Beach Brewery. But it is by choice that they have not set up a residency anywhere.
“That makes it fun for us, and we’ve all been into music long enough to know if you play too much, people don’t get as involved,’’ McCann said.
They don’t have a manager or booking agent. McCann and Ducote have young children and the Blackwells have two businesses. Extended tours are not to be. But playing live to their friends is still an ultimate evening out for the trio.
“It is definitely awesome when the audience gets into it with us. They are our friends out there, and they have been really supportive of our playing for a few years now,’’ McCann said.
“We play so many different genres and we are open to whatever. We do blues jams and metal and rock. We try to do it all,’’ he added. “People used to ask when we are going to play cover stuff, but that is never going to happen.’’