Brown Sound

One of the songs that the funky Fort Lauderdale trio Hashbrown is recording for its untitled forthcoming album is called “All Familiar.” In fact the band can be viewed as an “all familiar” staple of the Broward scene, considering how it has played on the local circuit for the past seven years. But as its members explain during an interview at their rehearsal spot and bunker in North Lauderdale, the “all familiar” they’re talking about has more to do with the expectations of the audiences they’ve faced than them.

“It’s about not having to take requests constantly,” says bassist Clarence “Jay” Spencer. When he’s onstage during a Hashbrown concert, Spencer taps out funky notes, sings, and holds the tension between Rick Kanner’s straightforward drumming and the different colors produced by Duncan Cameron’s guitar. “You destroy, and tear the house down, and somebody will be like, ‘Oh, that was great!’ We’d go like, ‘Thanks!’ And he’d go like, ‘You know “Use Me Up” by Bill Withers? No? Hmmm, do you know “Let Love Rule” by Lenny Kravitz? No? Any Bob Marley?’ We’re always like, ‘Some, but we’re not gonna play it right now.'”

For the past seven years, Hashbrown has built a reputation based on two independent albums and survived some “creative differences.” Those differences, which Cameron politely summarized as contrasting goals and expectations in life, led to the replacement of drummer Wayne Walters a few months before the release of their second album, Miles to Go, and turntablist Brian “Boogie Waters” Cook’s departure shortly afterward. Still New Times Broward-Palm Beach joined other local print and online publications in calling Miles to Go “unquestionably one of the finest Broward-based albums from last year,” an interesting combination of funk hooks, power trio rock, and experimental and jazzy passages.

But please don’t compare Hashbrown with Living Colour. “Not because I don’t like LC,” points out Cameron, who stops strumming his guitar to make this clear. “I think we do something completely different from them, and just to equate it by color, whatever it is that we do … it’s like saying we’re like Fishbone … or Hendrix.”

“Even if they don’t like our music, they have to agree that it’s something they’ve never heard before, some original shit,” complains Spencer, who, as Hashbrown’s frontman, helps the audience to get to know the band better, often introducing their songs with jokes and stories. It’s easier, of course, if you’re in front of a target audience, which is what happened when Hashbrown opened for California ska-punk-funk legend Fishbone at Billboardlive for the second time in two years. But it’s more difficult when he has to do it in front of a distracted crowd. That kind of audience, which he comes across on the Miami rock circuit far too often, doesn’t pay attention to the whole set; usually they take in a couple of songs and leave, albeit bobbing their heads as they walk out. At least “they don’t take X and dance out. They just wanna hear some [live] music,” says Spencer in the latter group’s defense.

Then drummer Rick Kanner completes his bandmate’s thoughts. “There’s still an audience for rock bands,” he explains. “Most of them are in college and don’t like anything more than going out and looking for good live music to see on a Friday or Saturday night instead of going to a rave and spending 30 dollars to see the same shit they’ve seen for five years.”

The singer agrees. Spencer loves Florida and will always consider this land home. “This is my spot, but live music … hmmm … this is not the right place,” he smiles. So they’ll be heading out of town as soon as they finish their third album — which is now scheduled for a late-summer release on AxisBold Records — for a three-week tour of the East Coast that includes a show at the legendary New York punk rock club CBGB’s. “We’re hungry, we’re trying to get ours,” says Spencer. When asked what it was like to open for famous people like James Brown, Rick James, Jimmy Page, G. Love and Special Sauce, Method Man, and the Meters, he answers, “It’s good to meet them, definitely.” The group, he says, loves to get feedback from musicians they grew up listening to. “Page said to us, ‘You guys are great, you guys are wicked, keep playing,’ and that’s really good,” remarks the singer. “If Jimmy Page says you’re doing something you gotta feel it in your heart … Jimmy Page says it, I’ve got to be doing something right!”