Kris Barras Band Unveil Video For New Track ‘Vegas Son’
The fast-rising Kris Barras Band are delighted to unveil the official video for their new track Vegas Son, taken from their new album Light It Up which is to be released on the 13th of September via Provogue, a month before their biggest UK headline tour to date.
Speaking about the track, Kris explains \”Vegas Son has one of my favourite guitar riffs of the album. It’s always great fun to play live. I’ve spent a lot of time in Las Vegas and I’ve been known to have a little flutter on the Blackjack once or twice! This song is about living life on the edge and taking risks; a ‘Vegas Son’ is being someone that adopts that Las Vegas-style mentality.\”
The pending release of Light It Up follows a whirlwind 18 months since the release of his previous album The Divine and Dirty in March 2018, where he sold 75 tickets for the London album launch at Thousand Island, and only 11 months later returned to play to 500 people at the main room of the Garage, London with an incredible ride to get there.
This journey saw the band not take a breath as they criss-crossed the country on 4 UK headline tours – each time the venues increased in size, and every time with sold out shows. He joined Beth Hart for a 10 date UK run as well as shows overseas, then 9 dates on tour with Joanne Shaw Taylor, not to mention shows with GUN, King King, The Magpie Salute, Therapy?, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, an unprecedented one-in, one out performance at Planet Rockstock and a full European tour with Jonny Lang and Walter Trout. He played to 3 million people on BBC Radio 2 – which caused host Richard Madeley to exclaim, “that’s the reason I love doing this show!” They have also had numerous A-Iist singles at Planet Rock Radio, won the stations prestigious 2019 ‘Best New Band’ award which led to him being asked to guest present two shows on the station. He even found time to join Supersonic Blues Machine as the new singer-guitarist with the legendary Billy F. Gibbons, joining for their debut European tour, playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London and a host of sold out shows and festivals across the continent. If that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, this summer saw him go out on the road with Kentucky arena rockers Black Stone Cherry on their July UK tour before making history as the first band ever to play Ramblin’ Man Fair, three years running on a bigger stage each year; from the Rising Stage to the Main Stage, which perfectly encapsulates this bands journey. Faraway from when Barras played the grassroots circuit with a mixture of originals in amongst covers to 20-30 people – from covering ZZ Top in pubs to playing with Billy F. Gibbons in the same band, in 2 years.
Light It Up sees him at his most expressive yet, forcing himself out of his comfort zone. “I kinda forced myself to write songs a different way. The biggest difference for this album was that I didn’t pigeonhole myself in any way, I didn’t feel like I had to conform. I just sat down and wrote songs I wanted to write, with a sound I wanted to produce, not thinking about genre whatsoever.”
Produced by Josiah J Manning at Momentum Studios in Plymouth, UK, it whips you into action from the opening heart of sleeve song ‘What You Get’ which cries, “You want the best of me, but can’t take the rest of me, well my mama packaged me whole, if you can’t take one little mistake, I think I’d rather be alone.”Right from the beginning it delivers no holds barred emotion and exposes itself as raw, resilient, fragile and protective. The high octane and euphoric ‘Broken Teeth’ is about not being afraid of getting your hands dirty and get a little bit hurt, keeping the pace with an infectious groove is the living on the edge, risk taking ode ‘Vegas Son’ whilst ‘Ignite (Light It Up)’ has already became an insatiable live favourite and ‘6am’ offers a beacon for hope.
He’s played with some giants in music from John Mayall to Beth Hart and Rich Robinson, but it’s been the time with Billy F. Gibbons that really hit home the journey so far. “To be stood on stage with Billy Gibbons every night playing ‘Sharp Dressed Man’, that was just absolutely crazy, I never thought that would happen in my wildest dreams. Just being around Billy Gibbons is hugely inspiring. He had a phrase he used to say; “we don’t have to do it, we get to do it” and that phrase really struck a chord with me, we’re very fucking lucky to be able to go on this stage and play.”
Maybe it’s the songs, the performance and maybe it’s his personal connection to his fans that he meets every night. Because he’s been that fan. A young Kris Barras saw one of his favourite upcoming bands, Black Stone Cherry at the 200 capacity Exeter Cavern in June 2009 and now he can proudly say, just over 10 years later, that he went out on tour with them as support, which included an incredible sold out show at Caerphilly Castle. It may be a rocket of a ride so far, but it’s only just begun.
UK Tour Dates
Tickets available from: krisbarrasband.com/tour
Fri 13th Sep – Tramshed, Cardiff w/Bernie Marsden
Sat 5 Oct – OPEN, Norwich w/Walter Trout
Thurs 10 Oct – Live Rooms, Chester
Fri 11 Oct – Arlington Arts, Newbury
Sat 12 Oct – O2 Academy 2, Sheffield w/Walter Trout
Sun 13 Oct – Fleece, Bristol
Tues 15 Oct – Robin, Bilston
Weds 16 Oct – 1865, Southampton
Thurs 17 Oct – Exeter Phoenix
Fri 18 Oct – O2 Academy Islington, London
Weds 23 Oct – Oran-Mor, Glasgow
Thurs 24 Oct – Arc, Stockton
Fri 25 Oct – Academy, Manchester
Sun 27 Oct – Fibbers, York
Tues 29 Oct – Whelans, Dublin
Weds 30 Oct – Empire Music Hall, Belfast
Sat 7 Dec – Planet Rockstock, Wales
Kris Barras Band Online:
www.krisbarrasband.com/
www.facebook.com/krisbarrasband/
https://www.instagram.com/krisbarras
https://twitter.com/krisbarrasband
Band:
Kris Barras (Guitars/Vocals),
Josiah J Manning (Keyboards),
Elliott Blackler (Bass)
Will Beavis (Drums)