Greyhounds

As Greyhounds, guitarist Andrew Trube and keyboardist Anthony Farrell have been making music and touring for 15 years, refining and developing a sound Trube calls "Hall and Oates meet ZZ Top. Anthony brings that LA thing and I bring the East Texas thing." Ardent Music, the independent record label based out of legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, expects to build on the fanbase the band has developed both on the road and as a staple of the Austin music scene. Label director Reed Turchi says, "We committed to three albums not only because we believe in these guys, not only because they're great musicians and songwriters, but because they've been incredibly prolific." "We're always writing," Trube says. "We've got songs for eight albums."

The first 'hounds out of the gate will be Accumulator, scheduled for a March 2014 release. "This is the re-introduction that never happened," Trube says. The album will combine the cream-of-the-crop of tunes the band's devoted followers pass along to the uninitiated with new, previously-unreleased tracks. An accumulation of the band's past and present, with a nod to ZZ Top's Eliminator, one of the most famous and commercially successful albums ever recorded at Ardent, Accumulator is also the first part of a sort of three-part wager well-known at the track.

"The music business is a gamble," Anthony Farrell says. "You got to keep playing to win. There have been lots of times we could have said 'This is too hard,' or 'There's no retirement plan. But basically you have to play your hand. And now Ardent has bet on us, and we've bet on them."

The first album will give new listeners "a little taste of the evolution of the band," according to Farrell, and will be accompanied by a re-vamped stage show featuring more than just a new set list.

The band's respect for the past, and their roots in country, blues, rock and soul, will meet the present in the second Greyhounds album released by Ardent, which is set to feature all new songs, with more of an electronic aspect. Farrell explains, "You ingest all your experiences, and you try to make sense of them through your art. This second album will be a reflection of where we were at when we wrote those songs."

For the third record, the band anticipates more of a live sound. The duo say they're excited to be recording in Memphis, with its rich musical heritage, and particularly at Ardent Studios, which combines that heritage with state-of-the-art equipment. When they aren't touring and recording as Greyhounds, Trube and Farrell keep busy as members of JJ Grey and Mofro, playing 200 dates a year, and writing songs for a variety of other musicians, including Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.