The Daily Times

Like the vine itself, Kudzu keeps on growing.

In early 2010, the band was in its infancy, just starting to play shows around Blount County. By the time the year ended, Kudzu had racked up 68 local performances and nabbed The Daily Times Readers Choice Award for Best Band. With shows already lined up through the end of June, Friday is as good a night as any to celebrate the release of the band’s self-titled debut album.

“We’re really proud of the fact that every bit of it was live off the floor,” vocalist/guitarist Tim Flatford told The Daily Times this week. “We went in and played live as a band up at (Brimstone Sound Recorders) Helenwood, and we did the basic tracks in two trips. We only had two overdubs, and that’s the biggest thing to us. What you hear is what you’d hear if you came and saw us live.”

For Kudzu fans, that’s exactly what they want to hear, for the band is most definitely a live phenomenon. None of the boys �" Flatford, drummer Justin Kelso, guitarist Nick Bradshaw and bass player Charlie LaFountain �" claim to be expert musicians, nor do they have any interest in becoming the next Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen. What they lack in technical prowess, however, they make up for in sheer energy, and that counts for more than all of the nimble-fingered guitar-playing in the world.

“Everything falls in place,” Flatford said. “We can run through a song twice, and we’re ready to go play it live because everything just fits. You can have some mediocre musicians, but when it all clicks, it’s awesome. Look at bands like Grand Funk (Railroad) or Poison �" those guys weren’t really the best musicians, but everything clicked, and they were great live. That, and it’s like having three brothers. Everybody gets along, and that helps, and some of the shows we’ve done are just crazy.”

The roots of Kudzu started with an online classified on Craigslist, and the guys got together with former guitarist Derrick Burchfield for the first time only two days before playing their first show. They pulled it off, however, and Flatford knew he had a winner on his hands.

An Indiana native who moved to Union County as a teenager, he’s the son of a traditional country musician who once spent a couple of tours opening for Conway Twitty in the early 1970s. As a youngster, Flatford was occasionally part of his dad’s shows.

In 1996, he moved to Blount County, eventually starting his own mobile deejay business and decided to play music during his down time. He answered the Craigslist ad that Burchfield and Kelso put up seeking a singer, and LaFountain �" a resource officer at Eagleton Elementary who also played music with his father �" was the final piece of the puzzle.

From the outset, the guys decided to shake up the traditional cover band concept. They took a song like “Brick House” by The Commodores and turned it from a funk-disco number to a down-and-dirty countrified song. They did contemporary country and classic rock. And, like a lot of bands, they went through their own membership turmoil �" Burchfield left the band, and the three remaining members found themselves searching for a guitarist.

“I walked into Murlin’s (Music World) and said I was looking for a guitar player, and Nick said he’d do it,” Flatford said. “He’s played with the Steel String Swingers and plays everything from good hard rock to good hard country, and that’s kind of our mainframe �" do it all or don’t do it at all.

“In all honesty, that change was probably a turning point for us. A lot of things we’re doing now, we couldn’t have done without him.”

These days, the guys have worked a healthy number of originals into their set. They’re clever, catchy and fiery, with a few somber, slower tunes thrown in for good measure.

“They’re all my babies, but ‘Icicle Tears’ gets a ton of response from people,” Flatford said. “We’re hoping that’ll turn into something. There’s another song on there, ‘Thick,’ that’s about ladies who aren’t a size 6. There are some really attractive women who don’t fall into that category, and we sing about that �" ‘I want a woman built to last, not one I can snap in half.’”

The Kudzu boys love the ladies, and vice-versa �" on more than one occasion, they’ve played what they term “underwear shows,” rowdy sets that end with female undergarments being tossed onto the stage.

“We watch the crowd and see where they’re going, and then we go there with them,” Flatford said. “We try to take them past where they wanted to go.”

They’ve been doing this long enough, Kelso added, that when they have a weekend off, they enjoy the break for all of a couple of hours before they’re going stir crazy. Flatford describes it as an addiction, and he’s the first to admit that he can get carried away.

“You don’t want to pose yourself as a threat to other bands, but if you are, that’s awesome,” he said with a grin. “The other guys have to pull me down sometimes, because I get way too competitive about it. I want us to be the very best we can be. Me personally, this is my last go-around with this, so I’m trying to go at it full bore.”