By DAN ARMONAITIS
As members of the Marcus King Band, Jack Ryan and Justin Johnson have had their share of incredible opportunities, from playing some of the most prestigious venues in the world to appearing on national television and sharing the stage with several famous musicians.
It’s a pretty good life, but sometimes they just want to do their own thing.
Enter The Shady Recruits, a group Ryan and Johnson formed with fellow Greenville-based musicians David Katilius and Charles Hedgepath along with Marcus White of Chattanooga, Tenn.
The Shady Recruits recently released their eponymous debut EP and will celebrate with a concert on Friday, Nov. 29 at Gottrocks in Greenville. “The Rev” Jeff Mosier is also on the bill and is slated to perform a solo set before sitting in for some of The Shady Recruits’ performance.
“Basically me and Justin from Marcus King Band grabbed a couple of our friends, and we’ve been doing gigs on the side for a couple of years now,” Ryan said. “We were just having fun, playing here and there, mostly locally, and as time went on, we started really looking it and going, ‘you know, we could do something with this if we wanted to.'”
The result is a six-song EP of original material that was recorded this summer at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, N.C., and mastered by John Keane at John Keane Studios in Athens, Ga.
“Back in June, MKB was supposed to go to Europe, and the tour got canceled, so we had a whole month off and the other guys in The Shady Recruits were free at that point, too,” Ryan said. “And it just so happened that a buddy of mine’s studio was open, so we scrambled together and made something happen. It’s almost like it was meant to be, the way things lined up. It was pretty Kismat.”
Featuring Ryan on drums; Johnson on horns and vocals; Katilius of Scrumptious and Adam Knight’s Buried Alive on bass; Hedgepath of The Work and The Bad Popes on guitar and vocals; and White of Voodoo Vision on keyboards, The Shady Recruits offer a distinctive, groove-oriented sound that draws from such influences as Funkadelic, Frank Zappa, Soulive, Steely Dan and more.
Further evidence of where The Shady Recruits come from muscially can be found on a note that appears on the back cover of the new EP that simply reads, “These songs are dedicated to our lost hero, Kofi Burbridge. Rest in Peace.”
“There’s definitely a lot of heavy jazz influence,” Ryan said. “Not to say that playing with the Marcus King Band isn’t fun, but with The Shady Recruits, it’s just very relaxed and we’re free to kind of play whatever we’re feeling a lot of times. The songs can definitely go off into a lot of different directions from one night to another, so there’s a lot of improvisation, and we just have a lot of fun.”
For Ryan, another interesting aspect of The Shady Recruits is the actual gear he can bring on stage for gigs.
“I get to use a lot of my vintage drum kits that I don’t get to bring with me when I play with Marcus (King),” Ryan said. “I have a clavinet and a lot of keyboards and stuff that don’t really get to come out, so it’s not just the music that I want to play but it’s also the instruments that I want on stage, too. There’s actual vintage keyboards and vintage drums and all the things that make the real sounds from back in the day.”
The Shady Recruits formed in 2016, having spawned from Ryan’s involvement in Hedgepath’s long-running Tuesday night residency at Smiley’s Acoustic Cafe in Greenville.
“In the very, very beginning, it was as much of an excuse to bring Marcus King into Smiley’s a Tuesday and not have to call it the Marcus King Band,” Ryan said. “We did that a few times, and then eventually we asked Marcus White to do it, and that was when (The Shady Recruits) really started taking shape.”
Ryan said Katilius, in particular, has been a longtime friend and that having the chance form a rhythm section with him makes the experience that much more enjoyable.
“Man, he is a gem, just an absolute genius,” Ryan said. “Anytime you present him with a situation or something you think is going to challenge him, he’s always on top of it and just makes it look easy. I just have a lot of respect for him. He’s an absolute beast.”
Of course, the same could pretty much be said of any member of The Shady Recruits. These are top-notch musicians whose instrumental skills are extraordinary, so it’ll be especially exciting to see what happens when they’re joined by Mosier, an acclaimed banjo picker who founded the jam-oriented Bluegrass Undeground, during Friday night’s show at Gottrocks.
“He’s an absolute genius,” Ryan said of Mosier. “He’s a monster player and just a sweetheart of a man. That was Charles’ suggestion to bring him on board for this show, and I was like, ‘well, that’s a no-brainer, let’s do it.'”
Ryan said The Shady Recruits will likely also bring some surprise guests on stage throughout Friday’s show.
“We’re just going to have a grand ol’ time,” he said.