Alt country in the Valley? Robbie Jay Band embraces it
By John Benson
The band is putting down roots and getting some experience here while looking ahead.
A shot of rock ’n’ roll with a country chaser.
That’s exactly the sound relative newcomers The Robbie Jay Band calls home with its alt country vibe.
“I guess I pretend to call us country, but if you showed up [expecting] to see a Kenny Chesney show at our concert, it would be totally the wrong group,” said Robbie Jay McFarland.
“I guess we’d be more old school rock ’n’ roll. Very jangly like old [Rolling] Stones and Tom Petty, but my big influences are like Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Steve Earle.
“I like what they call country stuff from Texas. It’s kind of west of what they do in Nashville.”
Among the new songs in the Hubbard act’s repertoire are group favorites “You Can’t Love Me” and “When You Were You.”
The former song is a rocker, while the latter is more of a happy tune.
McFarland has no idea when the group’s debut album will be released.
“I write about what I know,” said McFarland. “I wish I could write beer-drinking songs and all of that good stuff, but most of my songs center around life and love. Usually it’s like the bad side of love.”
Formed roughly a year ago, The Robbie Jay Band only recently started playing out.
Though most groups get on stage as soon as possible, this act — McFarland (vocals, guitar), Jason Hinrichs (guitar), Dan Daniels (drums) and Ryan Rexroad (bass) — decided to take a different approach that could be construed as, well, backward thinking by many in the local music scene.
“I know,” said McFarland, a 1997 Hubbard High School graduate. “With the business here, and without us sounding anal, we see the right way to do things and the way people expect things to be done. Also, we traded out a couple of guys, so there’s been a couple of different line-up changes even before we started to gig.
“It definitely took time to find the right pieces to the puzzle that we currently have. The only thing we asked for was members to be committed to the project and be willing to go play whenever, wherever and to whoever.
"We had some guys who only wanted to do Friday and Saturday nights, and we’re not a cover band.”
While not a cover band per se — the foursome does often kick out old Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Reckless Kelly tunes in its set — the Robbie Jay Band is already attracting quite an audience with its live show.
McFarland said the band is excited about its second Cedars show, planned for Friday at the popular Youngstown venue.
“The Youngstown area is a good place to be for anyone with good music,” McFarland said.
“I hear people complain about the Youngstown scene, but I think if you have a product worth coming out to see, people will come to see it no matter how pitiful the scene is. So we’re glad to call this place home, and we’ll play it and play it and then we’ll branch out from here.
“We’re taking it seriously. We have shows coming up. We just got booked in Pittsburgh in September, so we’re going to push the product as far as we can.”