IF YOU GO
MANCHESTER, NH – For the past two decades, the Souled Out Show Band has been entertaining crowds all over New England. Their performance is more akin to a spectacle than it is a regular show with vibrant visuals and an interactive experience for the audience. They also have a wide catalog of hits that range from the classics of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s to more modern material. A good time like this is appropriate to have at a major venue, and that’s exactly why the Souled Out Show Band is coming to the Rex Theatre in Manchester on March 30. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and it seems like the best way to spend a Saturday night in the Queen City.
I recently had a talk with saxophonist and lead vocalist Mark Belanger and guitarist Marc Smith ahead of the performance about the story behind the Souled Out Show Band’s existence, always keeping up with musical trends and aiming to entertain the audience.
Rob Duguay: How did the Souled Out Show Band initially come to be? Was it the both of you and other established musicians just getting together to start something or did it happen in a different way?
Mark Belanger: I used to be in another band called Rhythm Coalition that had reached a point of no longer being able to move forward, so I took a few of the people from that band with me and we started the Souled Out Show Band.
RD: The material you play revolves around renditions of funk, pop and rock songs, so how do you go about crafting a setlist for when you perform? Is it always evolving? Are you always finding new songs to play?
MB: We do a lot of rehearsing during this time of year when things are slower and once the summer comes we don’t really have a lot of time to rehearse, so we’ll use the winter months to hash out a batch of new tunes. We use those for the season although there are plenty of songs that we’ve been doing for over 20 years now that are kind of our staples. We’re always evolving with the new fun stuff that’s out on the airwaves now while resurrecting a lot of the horn tunes from the past. We do a lot of the newer stuff with a horn section and additional instrumentation, so we try to make everything our own while keeping up with everything that’s current for the most part for being a bunch of old guys.
RD: Very cool. Mark, you play both tenor & baritone sax while singing lead vocals, so how do you handle alternating between the two? You usually see the sax player in a band with the rest of the horns in the back instead of being front and center?
MB: I like to do both, so that’s why I continue to do both. I love to play and I have a good enough section behind me with Jimmy [Mara] and Steve [Price] that I can jump in on the parts that I’m not singing on while allowing me to do my two favorite things I like to do, which is play and sing.
RD: Now Marc, who do you consider to be your main influences when it comes to playing guitar?
Marc Smith: Far and away, Terry Kath, the original guitar player from Chicago. He was the reason why I picked up a guitar. I don’t want to say that he’s an underrated guitar player but if you asked 10 people on the street most of them wouldn’t know who he is. Because of the way I went to school and learned from listening to the way he played, that developed the style that I have which fits into this band. There’s certainly the funk side of what we do, the dance side of what we do and the entertaining side of what we do, but there’s also the aspect of sometimes I’m going to grab you by the throat because I’m a rock player. It’s nice to have that counterpoint between a really nice rhythm section and somebody that they throw it over to in order to have a guitar solo.
I’m not just going to play something that’s pretty to your ears, sometimes I’m going to be aggressive and sometimes I’m not. That was Terry Kath’s biggest thing, he was able to craft music that was pretty sometimes, that was moving sometimes and sometimes it just hit you in the face because that’s what he wanted to do.
RD: I’m a huge fan of both Chicago and Terry Kath so it’s cool that you have this influence. What can people expect from the Souled Out Show Band when they come to see you guys play at The Rex Theatre?
MB: What I always like to pride myself on with the band, as well as everybody else in the band, is that we don’t just play for entertainment. We’re very much a choreographed entity that people like to watch and it really blows me away every time we play for new crowds, the people are not only listening to us play but they’re watching what we’re doing. That’s why I do it, it’s certainly not for the money. (laughs) We’re an eight-piece band, we’re not on a recording contract and we play for the love of playing and entertaining people. That’s what does it for me, it’s the reaction we get when people see what we can do, what we take out of each song and how we project it while getting them involved as well as ourselves.
MS: We’re definitely not a stand around band. The whole concept is that we want so many things to be happening on stage plus the music that you are sitting there overwhelmed while asking yourself “What am I looking at? What am I hearing?”. There’s so much going on and every single person brings their own unique personality.
MB: As far as The Rex Theatre itself, what I’m looking forward to, besides performing of course, are the video montages that go behind our music. To see the audience’s reaction to that while we’re playing, we get a new following every time we do a show like this and it’s very rewarding. Obviously, I love our fans who come to see us all the time, but it’s just so nice to see new faces. Once we started hitting this theater circuit two or three years ago, we’ve kind of gone away from the nightclub scene and the variety of people that we’ve met has been different. They’re coming out for the music, they’re coming out to be entertained and that’s what we do.
We don’t just play for them, we entertain them as well. That’s a big part of it.
