LISTEN HERE: Clayton Congregation Comes Together
Clayton Bellamy has been several things to many people: A solo act, a member of the highly-decorated country-rock band The Road Hammers, a short-lived CISN Country radio announcer, and now the leader of “The Congregation” – new project he says “doesn’t have a sniff” of country.
Take him at his word. It’s more like the hard swamp-rockin-blues heard in bands like Black Crowes or Big Sugar. Big guitar, funky rhythms, bellowing choruses. No surprise that Big Sugar’s Gordie Johnson himself has sat in with the ever-rotating cast that is The Congregation. The 10-piece Edmonton band includes a horn section, two drummers and back-up singers, and is hellbent on “saving souls with rock ‘n’ roll – one groove at a time,” Bellamy says.
The band releases its debut album Welcome to the Congregation with a show Saturday, Oct. 12 at Festival Place. The first single is sort of a protest anthem called Resistorz, whose rousing chorus sings, “Rise up all my brothers, rise up all my sisters, hang on to each other, we are the resistors!”
Bellamy explains, “The only way you can fight hate-mongering and fear and those kinds of things in religion and politics, is to fight with resistance, and with other positive emotions, with love … and,” he adds, “loud guitars.”
LISTEN HERE:
