The Hot Seats

Artist Information

Biography

The Hot Seats:
FOR UPDATED CALENDAR:
http://www.thehotseats.net/shows

Josh Bearman – Clawhammer & Tenor Banjos, Mandolin, Bass, Vox
Ben Belcher – 3-Finger Banjo, Bass, Vox
Edward Brogan – Guitar, Vox
Graham DeZarn – Fiddle, Bass
Jake Sellers – Battery, Bass


“The Hot Seats specialize in unearthing and inventing traditional music and twisting it into new concoctions. Full of virtuosity and reverent irreverence, they are a sight to behold.”
- Relix Magazine

The Hot Seats play stringband music with simple intentions: to keep the role of traditional musician as entertainer and commentator alive and kicking. Homer and Jethro, The Skillet Likkers, George Formby, Harry Reser, Woodie Guthrie, Gus Cannon, Phil Ochs, Tommy Jarrell, Arthur Smith, Uncle Dave Macon, Frank Zappa – these are pools from which The Hot Seats draw. Their original music is simultaneously hard to classify and instantly identifiable, combining the virtuosic soloing and tightness of bluegrass, the band-driven rhythm of old time, the jerky bounce of ragtime, and the swagger of good old rock and roll.
While striving to push tradition forward, the band takes great pride in their ability to play within a tradition style as well as without. When it's bluegrass, they bring you back to the 1960's era of Flatt and Scruggs or Jimmy Martin; when it's old-time, they try and channel the Camp Creek Boys; when it's time for a bit of satire, it's the images of Frank Zappa or the Fugs towards which they gravitate. Ultimately, the Hot Seats are most concerned with making the music that they want to hear and playing in the manner that is most entertaining to themselves; the fact that audiences and critics alike have embraced it is almost a wonderful coincidence.
The band's most recent full length release, Feel highlights the band’s flexibility, moving between bluegrass, ragtime, oldtime, and their strange melds with ease, injecting humor and sharp witted commentary along the way. It was described by Songlines as “unmissable by anyone who is interested in oldtime music from the southern US. Appalachian music, bluegrass, jug band, and vaudevillian ragtime styles are all present and correct, with foot stompinging virtuosity, humour, and, true to the album’s title, feel.”
Their 2010 EP release features seven songs pulled from the depths of the public domain of old time and ragtime music. This release has been called “one of the most unique old time albums of 2010” by the roots music blog Red Eyed Rooster. These albums together are evidence of the band's dedication to treat stringband music as a modern form, open to current themes and sensibilities, as well as a tradition that is deserving of preservation, and to the Hot Seats' ability to play both on the outskirts and in the center of the Appalachian tradition.


"Absolutely superb - stunning musicians. If you get a chance to see them, take it. Very highly recommended." - Bruce MacGregor, BBC Radio Scotland

“You can search far and wide and you will not find anyone playing old-time music with this level of sincerity and drive. Other young stringbands either play it too safe, or so haphazard and punkish that it comes off as hokey and contrived. The Hot Seats know how to honor the tradition while bringing it into the modern era with rare intensity.” - Six Water Grog 2011


“If you don't have a good time when the Hot Seats play, check your pulse. You might be dead."- Chris Bopst (Richmond Times Dispatch)

“The focus and polish is an interesting counterpoint to the band’s satiric approach to music-making, that absurd aesthetic that now includes short films and tune-filled plays. Anything but the normal stuff.”
- Style Weekly, 2008

“Virginian quintet (The Hot Seats) thrive on diversity . . . The action is virtually non-stop, the musicianship superb, with fiddle, mandolin, banjo and guitar coalescing with humour and speed and powered by a communally owned and played double-bass, drums and washboard.”
- The Glasgow Herald, 2008

“The young five man acoustic band play with verve, vigour and a true feel for the roots of their chosen idiom. Which stilted critic-speak completely fails to convey the sheer fun and laughter of the show. If you like this sort of music, you must go. Everyone else should go and those who leave without having had a good time are just not the sort of people whom I would want to meet.” - BroadwayBaby.com, 2008

“BLUEGRASS, old-time, skiffle, jug band … stir them up vigorously, throwing in elements of zany vaudeville , add some unpredictable tics, then stand back and watch Special Ed & the Shortbus go.”
- The Edinburgh Scotsman, 2008

“Their shows are veritable litmus tests for a crowd's sense of humor. If you've ever answered yes to Frank Zappa's question "Does humor belong in music?" then The Hot Seats are for you. They're straight-up nuts when they pick and sing, and if you can get past the lovely freakishness of their stage act, you'll find some real talent backing up the zaniness."
- Haymaker Productions (www.haymaker.com), 2003

"Slightly disturbing dada-esque Va.-based string band that’s one part Beefheart freakout and two parts trad jug-band.”
- Connect Savannah, Savannah, GA, 2006

“When you see better-known names pointing their cell phones towards the stage after calling friends and tell them ‘listen to this’ as a band they’ve never encountered before holds a big audience made up mostly of other first-timers spellbound, it’s a sign that something special is in the air. And that’s what happened when the . . . Hot Seats exploded onto the stage . . . One moment, it’s like listening to Spike Jones and his City Slickers, the next, Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks. And, when they choose to take that turn down a well-trodden bluegrass trail, those in the crowd who recognize the subtleties between good and great, turn and nod at each other ”
- Maverick Magazine, 2007

For US Booking: thehotseats@gmail.com
For UK/Europe Booking: info@brookfield-knights.com

Instrumentation

Josh Bearman - Vocals, mandolin, Upright Bass, Tenor Banjo, 5-String Banjo
Ben Belcher - Vocals, Upright Bass, 5-String Banjo
Edward Brogan - Vocals, Archtop Guitar
Graham DeZarn - Fiddle, Upright Bass
Jake Sellers - Percussion, Upright Bass, Trap Set

Discography

Feel - 2013
Leftovers - 2013
Live! - 2011
Music Breakfast - 2011
EP 2010 - 2010
Retreat To Camp Candy Temptation Island - 2009
Rats in the Kitchen - 2008
Ground Beef Patrol - 2007
Downhill From Here - 2004
Special Ed and the Shortbus Bluegrass Band - 2004

Official Website

http://www.thehotseats.net

Links

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Audio

• No Plans
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• Hell & Scissors
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• Killing Time
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• Beefy Cheese Boogie
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• Hell Broke Loose In Georgia
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• Plowboy Hop
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• Jack Wilson - Sugar Hill
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Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Maverick Magazine Review of Feel [+ Show ]
  

  Country music before it became country The Hot Seats: A great sound and a really talented outfit...Country music before it became country
  
  The Hot Seats: A great sound and a really
  talented outfit now onto their seventh
  album, and a band that has become firm
  favourites on the US and UK festival circuits.
  They are particularly well liked in Scotland,
  with multi-invitations to Celtic Connections,
  Edinburgh Fringe and the prestigious,
  Shetland Folk Festival. Given The Hot Seats
  mixture of Appalachian, bluegrass and
  ragtime music, their affinity to Scottish
  audiences is fully understandable given
  the well known link to the origins of
  country music.
  The bright opening track sets the tone:
  No Plans is a song about not stressing out
  and taking one day at a time; the band
  leader, Ed Brogan’s deep deliverance
  reminding me a lot of Dan Tyminski in O
  Brother, Where Art Thou. There are four
  really good instrumentals interspersed
  across the twelve tracks. Mineola Rag
  comes up first; a whole lot of fun and a
  showcase for Graham DeZarn’s highly
  proficient fiddle playing. The other fast
  paced instrumentals are Roan Mountain
  Hilltoppers’ Rattletrap, Hank Bradley’s

• Old Time Herald Review of 7" EP [+ Show ]
  

  The Hot Seats are a five-piece band from Richmond, Virginia: Josh Bearman, Jake Sellers, Graham DeZa...The Hot Seats are a five-piece band from Richmond, Virginia: Josh Bearman, Jake Sellers, Graham DeZarn, Ed Brogan, and Ben Belcher. They play old time music at a rather frantic clip, close to clogger speed, and achieve a sound clearly rooted in old time music but distinctively their own.
  As you would expect from a band that approaches old time music in an eclectic manner, the five tunes played here are from five widely separated sources. “Betsy Likens” (or “Betty Likens”) is from Henry Reed . . . “Plowboy Hop” sounds the most like the source recording: the Grinnell Giggers’ (but the Grinnell Giggers didn’t use the wonderful tenor banjo!). Even after repeated listening, I could not make up my mind whether they were playing the tune in B flat (like the Grinnell Giggers) or had tuned up a half step to play out of A. From firsthand experience I can assure you that the tune is a lot easier to play in A. However they did it, they made some wonderful music – with a guitar break that reminded me a lot of Perry Bechtel or Django Reinhardt. (Have I overused the word “eclectic” yet?) John Salyer gave us “Jack Wilson” and “Sugar Hill” is from Round Peak – I can’t identify any single source here. “Evite Gabriel” is a French Canadian tune recently written be Daniel Thonon – wonder if they heard this from the author or learned it from the Portland Collection?
  This is a band. What I heard here makes it clear that they have been playing together long enough to blend together into a band sound, rather than as a collection of individuals. This becomes more understandable when you realize that this is the re-named Special Ed and the Shortbus, who won Clifftop’s Neo-Trad contest in 2008, so that the stew which makes up this band has had time to simmer into a real ensemble. (A subtle tribute to the past: the word SEATS is an acronym for Special Ed and the Shortbus.) Here it is 2012, and people who play old-time music are not culturally isolated the way many of our musical ancestors were, in, say, 1912. At one end of the spectrum we have musicians like Emmett Lundy, who learned tunes from Green Leonard and tried to play like Leonard. Modern musicians grow up listening to rock, probably take lessons on a band instrument while they are in school, get interested in things like early jazz as well as oldtime music, and what they wind up playing reflects all of those influences – a lot like Charlie Poole, who owed more to Tin Pan Alley and to the Community Music Director hired by the Spray Cotton Mills than to the traditional musicians of Rockingham County, NC.
  As I have said of other bands, this is one way in which oldtime music could grow and change in the years ahead. These are good tunes, played by excellent musicians who are clearly having fun making music together. Four tunes just wasn’t enough!
  
  -Pete Peterson

• Six Water Grog 7" Review [+ Show ]
  

  The Hot Seats EP 2010 We're now about a generation removed from the stringband revival of the 70's ...The Hot Seats EP 2010
  We're now about a generation removed from the stringband revival of the 70's and 80's, led, in part by the Chicken Chokers and Highwoods String Band. Who the hell remembers that anyway? But now, circa 2010, the Hot Seats have taken this sound a step farther in intensity, without losing any sincerity along the way. Only 7 tracks long (if you order it online) and clocking in at just 22 minutes, this isn't technically a full-length but it deserves mention because of the solid musicianship and overall impact it has on one when listening to it. You can search far and wide and you will not find anyone playing old-time music with this level of sincerity and drive. Other young stringbands either play it too safe, or so haphazard and punkish that it comes off as hokey and contrived. The Hot Seats know how to honor the tradition while bringing it into the modern era with rare intensity. It is the tradition for traditional music to evolve. This is the best old-time recording put out by anybody this year. And it covers a wide breadth – from straight up old-time tunes (Betsy Likens, Sugar Hill, Rocky Pallet) to rags (Plowboy Hop and Pig Ankle Rag) to stringband blues (Polecat Blues) to a dark traditional Irish reel (Evite Gabriel). This is authentic, no holds barred, stringband music. For your health.
  

• Glasgow Herald, August 2008 [+ Show ]
  

  Bill Monroe will be spinning in his grave. As the father of bluegrass, Monroe was a bit of a rebel, ...Bill Monroe will be spinning in his grave. As the father of bluegrass, Monroe was a bit of a rebel,
  otherwise he wouldn't have taken country music picking into that almost bebop-like sphere. He
  might have had a problem, though, with a band whose embracing of old time Appalachia and musical zaniness marks them out as love children of himself and Frank Zappa.
  
  Virginian quintet The Hot Seats thrive on diversity. They pay homage to Monroe and
  his disciples Flatt & Scruggs with a ridiculously liquid Roanoke and a true blue Sleep with One
  Eye Open. But their take on Pretty Polly, with vocal asides, exotic instrumental illustrations and
  Spike Jones-style percussion, turns them into a kind of bluegrass Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, while My Dirty Baby might require an adult supervision certificate.
  
  The action is virtually non-stop, the musicianship superb, with fiddle, mandolin, banjo and guitar
  coalescing with humour and speed and powered by a communally owned and played double-bass,
  drums and washboard. And short or not, it's definitely a bus to catch.

• Broadway Baby Review [+ Show ]
  

  Cowering away from the insistent drizzle under a table umbrella near the beer tent, my mood was not ...Cowering away from the insistent drizzle under a table umbrella near the beer tent, my mood was not of the best when The Hot Seats appeared in the entrance of the Spiegeltent and gave a taster of their music. Spirits lifted immediately.
  
  Damp and slightly steaming, once inside the venue, I was soon made to
  forget the insistent rhythm of the rain as the first notes were played. Toes started tapping seemingly of their own volition as the merry cocktail of bluegrass, rag and
  honky-tonk filled the tent, whose decor of wood panels and mirrors evoked both a Victorian pub and a Western saloon, providing an extremely apt backdrop for the
  sounds coming from the stage.
  
  The young five man acoustic band play with verve, vigour and a true feel for the roots of their chosen idiom. Which stilted critic-speak completely fails to convey the sheer
  fun and laughter of the show. Yes, there is laughter, caused by the saucy lyrics of some of the songs but even while not laughing I defy anyone not sit and listen to these guys without a broad smile on the face.
  
  “Special” Ed Brogan on guitar and vocals appears to be the leader of the band but the main audience rapport is provided through Josh Bearman (mandolin, banjo, bass ,
  vocals) and Aaron Lewis (fiddle, vocals). The rhythm section, Jake Sellers (washboard, trap set, percussion) and Ben Belcher (bass, banjo, vocals) are in the best tradition self-abnegatory and still the solid backbone of the music although the entire band contribute to the rhythmic shuffle than is integral to this tradition.
  
  Ah, tradition! I doubt very much whether any of these chaps are real hillbillies, looking for the most part like a bunch of keen Greenwich Village student-types grown up a bit.
  Bearman looks remarkably like my mate Stu, which means nothing to you but made me feel more kindly towards them. Aaron Lewis, however, cowboy-hatted, Hawaiian-sunset-shirted and proud bearer of a beard he must have started growing
  when he was in his infancy provides the necessary visual nudge as to where these guys are coming from, emotionally and musically if not geographically.
  
  If you like this sort of music, you must go. Everyone else should go and those who leave without having had a good time are just not the sort of people whom I would want to meet. Merchandise is on sale after. I bought some.
  
  [Luke Sharp]
  

• Edinburgh Scotsman Review [+ Show ]
  

  BLUEGRASS, old-time, skiffle, jug band … stir them up vigorously, throwing in elements of zany vaude...BLUEGRASS, old-time, skiffle, jug band … stir them up vigorously, throwing in elements of zany vaudeville , add some unpredictable tics, then stand back and watch The Hot Seats go.
  
  And they do, frequently at a high rate of knots, as bluegrass fiddle champion Aaron Lewis, violin tucked beneath his beard, sets the pace with a hell-for-leather breakdown or whining song accompaniment; Josh Bearman and Ben Belcher deftly switch between double bass and
  nimble banjo, while "Special" himself, singer Ed Brogan, looks serious over his guitar and Jake Sellers keeps things moving on kit percussion and washboard.
  
  All the way from Richmond, Virginia, these guys rarely ease back, either on tempo or manic humour. Tunes range from the all-out traditional of Kitchen Gal or the jug band stomp of Sugar Puddin' to a klezmer extravaganza that emerges out of instrumental mayhem to pull off some split-second exchanges between fiddle and banjo. It's also
  probably the first time you'll hear a fiddle and kazoo duet … from the same player (Lewis). Songs include the lugubrious chorusing of Woa Mule, Paper Chase, the band's energetic bluegrass riposte to the credit crunch, the particularly gormless I Want to Hold Your Ear, or the spooky singalong of There Ain't Nobody Here But Me.
  
  Amid all this, imagine occasional outbursts of harmony singing/farmyard noises and you'll have of an idea of the Shortbus sound, although their spectacularly OTT encore is pretty well indescribable.

• The Hot Seats [+ Show ]
  

  A friend of mine asked me, "Are you sure you want The Hot Seats to play? Have you heard them?" Yes, ...A friend of mine asked me, "Are you sure you want The Hot Seats to play? Have you heard them?" Yes, I have. Multiple times. The Hot Seats are a stringband that may seem a little hard to swallow for some. Much like the Fugs and Holy Modal Rounders before them, their shows are veritable litmus tests for a crowd's sense of humor. If you've ever answered yes to Frank Zappa's question "Does humor belong in music?" then The Hot Seats are for you. They're straight-up nuts when they pick and sing, and if you can get past the lovely freakishness of their stage act, you'll find some real talent backing up the zaniness.
  

• Relish [+ Show ]
  

  This group of acoustic musicians from Richmond play a type of music that has been described as acous...This group of acoustic musicians from Richmond play a type of music that has been described as acoustic mayhem -- a good thing, in this case. The group is a stylistic mixed bag, incorporating elements of vaudeville, jug-band music, bluegrass, old-time string-band music -- and, naturally, various Eastern European musical traditions. It's careening, high-energy entertainment that is off the rails -- but expertly performed.

• Savannah writeup [+ Show ]
  

  Slightly disturbing dada-esque Va.-based string band that's one part Beefheart freakout and two part...Slightly disturbing dada-esque Va.-based string band that's one part Beefheart freakout and two parts trad jug-band.

Setlist

Basic Requirements

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