The Heavy Pets are a 5-piece American jam band whose smooth instrumentals and vocals will get you groovin’ to their funky fresh music. During a Heavy Pets set you can see Jeff Lloyd and Mike Garulli ripping on guitar, Jim Wuest gettin’ down on keys, Tony D’Amato giving deep rhythm bass, and Jamie Newitt breaking it down on drums. Jeff, Mike, and Jim also woo the crowd with their velvet smooth vocals. This Florida based band has been rocking out since 2005 and with many a festival under their belt, inluding their own PetZoo, The Heavy Pets can be seen next at The Big Up Music & Arts Festival. This festival is right around the corner, from August 8-10 in Claverack, New York. The venue will be at Hemlock Hollow Farm and along with The Heavy Pets the lineup will include: Beats Antique, Holy F*ck, Gaudi, Eskmo, Escort, An-Ten-Nae, and so much more. Check out The Heavy Pets this Saturday at The Big Up stage and enjoy a weekend filled with a hot eclectic line-up and fun freaky folks. Listen to THP’s latest sounds below and check them at The Big Up!
Get tickets for The Big Up Festival Here
Can you explain the release of your Everywhere Sessions, and how this is different than THP’s past releases?
The Everywhere Sessions is a series of in-studio live recordings, and corresponding videos. We had become two different bands – THP the studio band and THP the live band. So the idea was to release something very true to our live sound while being more intimate than a live show. More like the 5 of us in rehearsal. Same goes for the videos – we drove around in the van all day, just like we always do, and rigged it up with cameras. We had discussion points but no scripts. This way we are kind of offering the best view of who we really are. The next one is going to be us eating – one of our favorite band activities. I got one of my favorite restaurants in South Florida to offer us comped meals shooting there, so the Everywhere Sessions is already paying dividends, haha.
How stoked are you guys to perform at The Big Up?
Well we have a few tricks up our sleeve for this one. We know our set is during the day and we can’t rely on lights, so we are bringing other visual stimuli. And knowing that it’s (hopefully) a sunshine set naturally will affect the song selection. Tony D. is also a DJ and writes most of our setlists. It is a role he naturally assumed, and we have all been loving it. He is very attuned to the ebb and flow of our material and the different ways the songs relate to each other so he writes very colorful setlists that seem to make each song “pop”. We will be taking everyone for a ride at Big Up. We will definitely be focusing on the newer material including a pair of songs that we just recorded here in South Florida for a new EP.
If you could collaborate with anyone on The Big Up lineup, who would it be?
There are many musicians playing the fest that we would be honored to play with, and the list could be rather extensive so I will spare you. But in actuality, we shy away from doing raw collaborations at festivals. It is kind of overdone and we want to really focus on our material and the infinite amount of ways we can play it as a group. So as a nod to the festival sit-in cliche sometimes we DO have sit-ins. We put a chair onstage, and invite a good player with a sense of humor to sit-in, and they just sit there. Maybe we will have our tour manager bring them a cocktail or give them a book to read for the duration. We think it’s hilarious. I think most of the audience gets it and others just scratch their heads.
What’s next for The Heavy Pets?
We just finished an EP that we are extremely excited to drop, so that’s next. And of course a very busy Fall and Winter tour schedule, but we have the week off between Big Up and Rootwire and Equifunk, so we will be hanging with our families and kicking it around NY and the Northeast. This Fall we will likely do another EP, as well as some great festivals including Rombello (a music festival cruise to the Bahamas) and Magnolia Fest in Florida. Our Fall tour and Halloween shows will all be announced prior to The Big Up so stay tuned.
Connect with The Heavy Pets
Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube | SoundCloud
Connect with The Big Up
Official Website | Tickets | Facebook | Twitter
Original article: *The Big Up Featured Artist Interview* The Heavy Pets
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