If you don’t know The Lonely Biscuits, formerly Gravy and The Biscuits, you will now. Coming out of Jersey, Nebraska, Missouri, and Charlotte, these four buddies met at Belmont University, freshman year, and three years later are headlining their own tour, as well as performing at SXSW, Hang Out Fest and Bonnaroo all in the same year!
Band members include Grady Wenrich on vocals and guitar, Sam Gidley on drums/percussion, John Paterini on vocals and guitar, and Nick Byrd on bass. Blending soul, funk, hip-hop and some reggae-rock, the Biscuits have found their own sound and are turning heads all over the country. At the moment, The Biscuits have three EPs out including Soul Food, Biscuit Buffet and their newest release, A Girl Named Destiny, which charted on Billboard’s Regional Heatseekers Chart.
I recently got a chance to catch the group in Asbury Park, NJ at the Stone Pony, only a few miles north of rapper, guitarist Grady “Gravy” Wenrich’s home town of Point Pleasant. With a packed house of fans, and a lot of local friends and family, I was still able to grab the boys for a few minutes and ask them a couple questions…
The Pier: So first of all, who are you guys and how did it all start? I know you guys went to Belmont together…
Sam: We still go to Belmont and we just finished our Junior Year. Me and Grady were random roommates freshman year and when we started the band, John and Nick lived a couple doors down the hall, and it happened kinda naturally.
John: They literally lived across the hall and they had a few songs out by the first day of school.
Well now you guys have been a band for three years and it seems like you’ve already come a long way…
Sam: Yeah its been pretty amazing. This is our first headlining tour and we got to kick it off with Bonnaroo and Hang Out Fest. It’s been an awesome year for sure and has been so exciting for us.
You guys blend soul, blues, hip-hop and a little beach reggae-rock. Where do you guys draw your influences from?
Sam: We draw influences from all those genres and each of us being from a unique place, we can bring our own sound to the band.
John: I think we definitely have a strong rock influence and we’re inspired by our friends and the people we meet on the road.
This tour seems to come at the right moment, and I can tell here in Asbury Park, you guys have a seriously dedicated fan-base..
Sam: The tour has been even better than expected. We didn’t really expect anything with this band when we first started and to see it all take off has really been something special.
You guys won a MTV Woody Award last year, correct? How did that go down?
Sam: Someone from MTV actually contacted us and was like ‘we like your music and we want to put you in this contest’ and a few months later, we won Collegiate Best New Artist based on fan voting. Then we got to play SXSW with all these huge artists, like Macklemore, it was pretty surreal.
Even though you guys have a ton of influences and have an eclectic taste in music, is there anyone in particular you would like to work with in the future?
Sam: It’d be pretty cool to work with Questlove, we love The Roots and they’re a big influence of ours.
John: I think it’d be awesome to work with Outkast. But as far as our plans for the future, just working in the studio and planning to release our first full-length album.
And now we’d like to welcome The Lonely Biscuits to The Pier’s MP3 Massive Section as they’re giving away a New & Unreleased song titled “Hands Tied” which you can download by clicking HERE!
Related Links:
The Lonely Biscuits Website
The Lonely Biscuits Facebook
Article By: Andrew McClatchy
Photo By: Peter Monti