Local legendary party throwers Float Like a Buffalo are kicking into high gear this spring and summer with their “rock ‘n’ roll with horns, hard funk, a little bit of everything” style jam music that fans know — and maybe don’t know — and love. On May 3, sandwiched between tours, Float Like a Buffalo will headline Cervantes’ Other Side to host a party with a lot of dancing and “a whole bunch of good times.” A band that has undergone its fair share of moving and shaking, growing and expanding, Float Like a Buffalo is looking forward to a stacked year of touring, debuting, and a lot of fun.
Every good party needs momentum, and in the case of the upcoming Cervantes’ show, the momentum has been building for nearly a decade. While the current iteration of Float Like a Buffalo was founded last September with the addition of drummer Jon Cales, old-school FLAB began in 2014 with lead singer and rhythm guitarist Cory Pearman, bassist Jason Clukies, and a “whole band of random friends and people.” In those past ten years, the band’s lineup has ebbed and flowed, and present-day FLAB is now a staggering sixsome that includes Pearman, Clukies and Cales along with trombonist and pianist Cory “Beef” Meier, lead guitarist James Steinbach and saxophonist and trumpeter Luke Story.
What started as jam or rock music turned funky when, in 2017, Meier and Story auditioned for a band that was looking for a horn section. “Party Rock Funk” is how Pearman described it, or “if the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Chicago Transit Authority had a love child,” in Story’s words. “We’re still working on branding at the moment,” Meier quipped, though the music itself has “transitioned over the years, gotten more rock-influenced.” The collaborative processes behind the music translate clearly throughout, with the first notes igniting the toes and swiftly proliferating through the head, shoulders and knees. It’s “party music” that develops both inwards to the soul and outwards to captivate its vicinity.
A collaboration FLAB certainly is, what with the “very drastically different influences and backgrounds” from each of its six members. From the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps to Nuggets and Avalanche drum lines, from Dazzle to Charlie Brown’s, from “playing music for pretty much my entire life” to “I’m the least musical of these guys,” Float Like a Buffalo has covered quite the musical spectrum. Which is why their music “doesn’t sound like any other type of music…because we’re all of it,” Story asserted. “You put those songs together and you get something super unique.”
Supported by opening bands and musical peers Elder Grown, Toadstool, and late-night DJ BKellZ, Float Like a Buffalo will be in great company as they bring their unique collection of eclectic tunes to the Cervantes’ stage. The show will see song debuts, some possible collaborations with the other bands, and “maybe some new cover action as well.” According to Story, it’s best to expect the unexpected from a band that seems to be proactively evolving. “Some of the newer stuff has a lot more thicker arrangement and a lot more detailed parts that are hopefully going to hit in a way that fans haven’t quite seen us play before.” And in a city that Pearman credited as being “probably the best music scene in the country,” the night’s music and vibe are bound to be on parallel upward trajectories.
Fans will be able to follow that trajectory throughout the spring and summer as well. Float Like a Buffalo will be heading to Summer Camp after winning their battle of the bands contest. They’ll be doing two tours, one through the Midwest and one through the South, along with opening for The Samples at Evergreen’s The Little Bear Saloon on May 31 and June 1. On June 7, they’ll be playing with the Cheyenne Symphony at Cheyenne’s The Lincoln, where they’ll be performing “two hours of original music orchestrated for a 26-person orchestra.” Beyond that, the long-term plan is to “take it as far as we can go,” said Clukies, “to share what we got with more people as often as we can…keep the vibes going.”