Saucy Funky Collective Extravaganza June 28 at Big Beach Brewery

Saucy Funky Collective Extravaganza June 28 at Big Beach Brewery
Lampshades’ Hunter Myers & Austin Thompson started playing together as GSMS 6th graders

By Fran Thompson
Part of the $10 cover for the Saucy Funky Collective Extravaganza at Big Beach Brewery on June 28 will be used in part to pay for the production of the Funky Lampshades’ first ever studio release, “I Don’t Want Your Money.’’
“I suppose that is kind of ironic,’’ said Austin Thompson, who wrote the song for the band he co-founded with Hunter Myers while they were classmates attending Gulf Shores High School. “We recorded four songs. But that is the one we will release at the event. We’ll release another one next month and maybe the other two together the month after that.’’
Myers, who started playing music with Thompson when both were GSMS sixth graders, also sees the irony in the band’s name considering there was nothing funky about the music they played early on.
“We would cringe at each other’s suggestions that we both knew were lame, and one day I came up with one that finally clicked after going to a thrift store, or maybe it was an antiques store, in Foley that had an eclectic selection of lamps all with shades that did not match,’’ Myers said. “I said ‘what a bunch of funky lampshades.’ It had nothing to do with funk music, which is ironic since that is what we now play. We are named after an ensemble of strange looking lampshades.’’
“When we were tossing out names, that was the first one that made us both laugh,’’ added Thompson.
Phil J and The Collective will open the Extravaganza at 4 p.m. Saucy FuzZ will play at 5:30 p.m., and the Funky Lampshades and their friends will take the stage around 7 p.m. There will be commemorative Extravaganza t-shirts available at the party, including special edition artist tie-dyes made by Jake Wilson.
In addition to best pals Myers and Thompson, the Lampshades include a third Gulf Shores resident, bassist Elliot Hernandez and a Pensacolian, drummer Andre Heard. All three Saucy FuzZ members, Kyle Thornton, a former Lampshades drummer, guitarist Mason Henderson and bassist Earl Henson live around Pleasure Island.
The Eastern Shore based Phil J (formerly with Yeah Probably) and the Collective also includes Quinten Ayers and Ike Keese.
The four songs the Lampshades recently recorded were tracked and produced by Maison Faulk at a garage studio owned by John Hall, who also happens to be the drummer for the hottest band in country music, Mobile’s Red Clay Strays. The band made about eight trips to Hall’s How-About-You-Come-On Studio, and Hall added shakers to the mix and helped with the production.
Thompson said he learned more about his craft at every recording session, which also fits in perfectly with his band’s mantra to get tighter every time they play.
“I learned so much not only about the technical side of it, but also about how we work as a band together in the studio,’’ he said. “I’m glad we did it this way. John was so inviting. It gave us time to get better takes and we did not spend as much money out of pocket.’’
Thompson and Myers first started playing music in the Myers’ family garage on Fort Morgan Rd. when they were around 12 years old trying to figure out chords to Bob Dylan songs.
“We have been playing together ever since,’’ Thompson said.
Not surprisingly, Thompson said he was influenced by the musicians he grew up around beginning with his father, Mike Thompson, who played in the band Against The Grain. The elder Thompson, who used to play with the father of another local musician, Chris Beverly, passed along his love of music to his son.
“Chris and I grew up in the same trailer park in Orange Beach’’ Thompson said.
Myers also comes from a musical family. His dad played drums and exposed him to all kinds of different music when he was growing up in Fort Morgan. He started playing drums and piano when he was 10 and he remembers singing songs when he was six.
“I’ve never had any lessons. But singing is my main gun,’’ he said. “Austin and I went to sixth grade together and when we found out we both liked music, we started hanging out. Austin was more into Southern Rock and blues, and I was into the jazz singers and the synthesizer & psychedelia stuff. I am a jazz nerd at the end of the day.’’
Although, like his father, Myers started playing music on a drum kit, what he has always loved most is singing songs.
“I lean towards the funk and R&B side, but I love jazz notes. I love any song I can throw jazz notes at and pull it off so it works,” he said.
Thompson and Myers decided that they were going to form a band when they were in middle school and visited Gulf Shores High School for an orientation and saw a band of GSHS students, Catawampus (Basch Jernigan, Harrison Butler and Ayden Closson), play in the gym.
They soon formed an acoustic trio they called Salmon Pants with Roger Strict Jr. (whose father plays around Pleasure Island with Strictly Chandler).
They later formed Funky Lampshades as an acoustic duo, and Rosemary Steele gave them their first job, a gig playing three nights a week on the front porch of the restaurant, Desotos, she owns with her husband Chris Steele. They kept that gig for at least two years.
Hernandez has actually been with the full band longer than Myers, as he and Thornton teamed with Thompson when they expanded the Lampshades into a full band in 2019.
“I had an opportunity in real estate and I took it, but I was not happy doing it,’’ Myers said. “We were still playing as a duo some and then I slowly started playing with the band.’’
“Elliot is the only reason we have made it this far,’’ Thompson said. “He has been so loyal. He rarely misses any gigs.’’
“Even though Austin and I have known each other a long time, Elliot and Austin have been together in the band the longest. He’s the veteran. And he’s such a good guy that if Austin and I get into disagreements, he makes us feel bad about fighting,’’ Myers added.
“Well, I never miss a gig and I don’t take anybody’s side. I’m about keeping it balanced. Just keeping everything running,” Hernandez said. “Sometimes we get mad at each other. But we always come back the next week.’’
Hernandez started playing his brother’s guitar while still in middle school in his native Puerto Rico. He kept breaking his brother’s guitar strings while trying to learn how to tune it. So, tired of his brother’s complaints, his mother bought him a guitar of his own.
It did not come easy. But he was determined. By the 7th grade he was comfortable reading tubulatures he found at his local library and playing along with Godsmack songs. Soon he was playing by ear. These days you will more likely find Thundercat on his playlist.
He played in the St. Augustine band, DangerMouse, when he moved to Florida. He also spent time and played music in Tennessee before settling in Gulf Shores, a place he does not plan to leave.
Thompson said he met Hernandez and Thornton (the band’s first drummer) at John Martin Davis organized open jams at Our Coffee in Gulf Shores. When jam night moved to Big Beach Brewery, Davis passed the baton to Thompson. And he has carried on the tradition ever since.
The three Lampshades (and Thornton) also played in some combination at open jams at Tambo’s Surf Shack in Gulf Shores and The Chris Beverly hosted jams at the Undertow (called tow-jams, of course) in Orange Beach.
“It’s still a Tuesday night residency at Big Beach,’’ Thompson said. “Even if I can’t be there, I make sure it still happens. It’s kind of like the jam nights Mel Knapp used to host at The Happy Harbor (on Marina Rd. in Orange Beach). So many bands have gotten together as a result of these jams.’’
That includes the first full band version of the Funky Lampshades, who connected when Thompson and Hernandez sat in with Saucy FuzZ at The Undertow.
Thornton was trying to play gigs with both bands, but as demand for both increased, gig conflicts arose.
“We still keep Kyle involved as much as possible. He played in the studio with us. But Saucy FuzZ was his band. He needed to play with them,’’ Thompson said.
Heard started playing regularly with the Shades after sitting in for a gig they played at Hub Stacy’s in Pensacola.
The Funky Lampshades are booked almost nightly around Pleasure Island in the summer. But they also now play regularly in Destin, New Orleans (House of Blues & Le Bon Ton Roule), Hammond (Knarly Barley) Huntsville (The Camp and Straight To Ale) and Mobile (The Brickyard). They also road trip to Key West in the fall and The Virgin Islands in the spring for gigs and work with booking agencies in Tuscaloosa and Atlanta.
“We try not to tour in the summer because we are so busy already,’’ Thompson said. “We play as many as six shows a week and I sometimes play 40 gigs a month. But we are a touring band.’’
“During the busy months, we stick around here and work five nights a week, and we’ve had stretches where we’ve played 13 days in a row. We have at least one double every week,’’ added Myers.
Myers also just started playing in a duo, Odd Nature, with his girlfriend, Madi Thomas.
The facebook announcement for the Extravaganza has received 500 responses and the plan now is to make it an annual event to promote local bands.
“I just thought the best way I could support local music was to put this out as a fundraiser for musicians who play live in the area. The bands on the bill are already friends. I hope we can bring together different bands and do it the last weekend of June every year for one great event where we can blow it out,’’ Thompson said.
Myers, Thompson and Hernandez are the Lampshades core three, and the few gigs that Heard can’t make gives the band an opportunity to add twists and turns to their sets.
“Dre is our main drummer, but once or twice a month he can’t make it and we bring in another drummer, and it’s a lot of fun. I guess there is always room for expansion, if the money is right And if we do, I picture us adding some kind of percussion alongside Dree,’’ said Myers.
“There is an new energy and a new delivery when we play with different people. It refreshes the band and we sound different,’’ Hernandez added.
Thompson’s bandmates agree with his mantra of moving the needle forward every time they play.
“We are still growing as a band that is finding our way and our sound, but the main thing we do is get funky and jam before eventually getting back to the song,’’ Hernandez said. “That is when we have the most fun. But even the four songs that we recorded sound different than when we first starting playing them.
“We know where each is during a song and we can open the door up and go into a jam in whatever key we are in,’’ he added. “Communicating musically is the main thing. Everybody will begin to play together and it turns into a bubble and all of us are in that bubble.’’
“This is just what I was meant to do. I truly believe that,’’ Thompson said. “I have a bio/med degree. I was in college on scholarship and made the dean’s list. But I know this is the path that is right for me. I’ve put everything I have into it, and it’s served me well so far. I will be doing this in one capacity or another forever.
“I’ve played music ever since I was a kid. I have to have a guitar in my hands every day. I really can’t remember the last day that didn’t happen,’’ he added.
“I have no plans to do anything but play music,’’ Myers added. “We are getting by now and it’s only going to get better with all the things happening.’’
Pictured: The Funky Lampshades in their early days as a Hunter Myers/Austin Thompson duo; Saucy FuzZ (Kyle Thornton Mason Henderson & Earl Henson) have jammed with the Funky Lampshades for the past five years and will play at the June 28 Extravaganza.