On the way home from a five-week trip to Utah, Brian Swenk, banjo player for Big Daddy Love, stopped for a bit in Arkansas to reflect on the band, musical genres, and the importance of sharing a sense of adventure with friends.
Big Daddy Love (BDL) is a band of friends with solid musical backgrounds and a shared love of adventure. “I grew up in Sparta, North Carolina, north of Boone,” says Brian Swenk, who plays banjo for the band. “Joey Recchio (electric guitar and vocals) and I were a year apart in elementary school.” Only after becoming an adult did Brian realize how magical growing up in Sparta was. “My parents actually met playing music – their harmonies were amazing. We grew up in a holler in Allegheny County, and the only television station we could pick up was out of West Virginia. My family spent a lot of time playing music at home. They liked folk and rock – I grew up on Neil Young, the Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, Cat Stevens and the likes.” Brian says his dad once opened for the Allman Brothers when Duane was still alive. “I eventually rebelled and went into bluegrass,” he laughs. “I also went through a heavy metal phase.”
While there was bluegrass music all around his part of the world, Brian says he didn’t appreciate it like he does now. “When I started playing banjo, I took a deep dive, listening to Earl Scruggs, the Grateful Dead, and Bela Fleck non-stop. I think I practiced about six hours a day for a while.”
Brian says that Joey is the most natural musician he has ever met. “Not long after he started playing the guitar, he could pick any song on the radio and play it. He plays slide guitar Duane Allman-style. You can’t fake that.” Growing up in Sparta, Brian and Joey would meet at the river and play music. “We really clicked musically, but college took us in different directions, and we drifted apart over the next ten years.” Brian played in a bluegrass band for a few years, and from time to time, Joey, who was playing rock music, would wander into one of Brian’s gigs. “It was always great to see him.”
They got together again when Daniel Smith recruited them in 2009 to join a band he had formed called Big Daddy Love. “A few of the guys in the band had left, and he was trying to keep it going.” While Brian and Joey had a music history together, going back to school days in Sparta, both had a decade of experience under their belts that they brought to the table. “We knew right away that it was magical,” Brian says. “We were at the point in our lives where we knew we had to go all in. We were in our thirties, and we gave up anything with security – our houses, jobs, and relationships. We bought a van and were determined to make it work.”
Ashley Sutton (bass guitar and vocals) joined them, and Scotty Lewis (drums) eventually came on board. “He’s the ‘new guy,’” laughs Brian. “But he’s been with us 12 years now.” Both Ashley and Scotty have musical backgrounds, but they are quite different. “They bring that to the mix, and it just adds to our overall sound.” Daniel ended up leaving when parental obligations called him home from the road.
Based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, BDL has been playing together for fifteen years and is still going strong. It’s hard to pin them down to a specific musical genre. There is rock, bluegrass, southern soul, and psychedelic jams in their music, which they have dubbed “Appalachian Rock.” Brian runs a booking agency and says he counsels the bands he works with to describe their music quickly and succinctly. “That’s what we have done with our Appalachian Rock description. It is exactly what we do.”
The band recorded an album, To the Mountain, right out of the gate in 2010. Others followed: Let it Grow in 2012, Live at Ziggy’s in 2013, and This Time Around, recorded in Woodstock, New York in 2014. It’s been a decade since they released an LP, but Brian says they recently spent a week at a studio in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, and plan to release a full-length album this year. “An album is a snapshot of where you are in life,” Brian says. “Not only musically, but emotionally and in so many other ways. Joey has become such an amazing frontman, guitar player, and songwriter. He has really grown into it. And Ashley and Scotty bring so much. I am proud of all our albums, but this one is going to sound so different from what we were doing back then. We were more country/bluegrass back then, and now we are more bluesy rock but with a banjo. It’s something we are all proud of.”
The band is as much fun to watch as they are to listen to. Folks at a Big Daddy Love show are up and dancing. They may not have heard the phrase “Appalachian rock,” but chances are they know just what to do when they hear it. Here’s a sampling of what Big Daddy Love brings to the stage.
While Brian is proud of what the band is putting out musically, he’s equally proud that they are still together after fifteen years. “We are all great friends and love going on adventures together. There was a time, early on, when we had no idea where we would be sleeping that night. Most of the time, we had no idea what we were going to be paid. We didn’t think about those things. We just loved playing music together, and we still do. When we get together after being apart, we are all excited to see each other.”