Brooklyn-based indie dance band Cold Blood Club is taking its show on the road and will make a Philly stop Jan. 10 at Milkboy.
The eight-member group features bisexual singer Kendra Jones, who shares vocal duties with the band’s main songwriter.
“The other singer is Tom Stuart,” Jones explained about the group’s setup. “He’s the guitarist and the songwriter. Tom writes all the music. Before we started recording the LP we are working on now, he had already had all the music figured out. I have some creative input sometimes but Tom is the brains of the operation.”
While Stuart is the creative force, Jones rather reluctantly said her role is to be the muse and focal point of the music.
“I hate saying this because it makes me sound like such an asshole but as far as the attitude and the voice of the band, I’m pretty confident in saying I drive that and then Tom builds around that and makes it complete,” she said. “Everybody else does their part but I think of my creative input as being the inspiration for that. Oh, God, I sound like such an asshole!”
With technology allowing dance groups to sound big with minimal man- or woman-power, it’s rare to see an independent group with such a healthy roster of performers.
But Jones said the goal of this group is to function like a family.
“From the beginning, even when it was me, Tom and another singer, Brad, who has gotten married and started a family, we just wanted the band to feel like a family thing,” she said. “We weren’t looking in the paper for musicians to come together. Everybody who has worked on this project, we’ve known each other for a while. Even the newer people come to us from some kind of connection. In terms of the number of us, each one of us brings something different musically. Tom is a big fan of layering sounds and making songs sound as big and full as possible. It happened naturally. We kept meeting people that were cool and interested in what we were doing. We tried them out and that’s how we ended up how we are.”
While they are at work on a full-length album due out sometime later this year, Cold Blood Club is also doing gigs to win over fans one show at a time.
“We like to fucking party and have a good time and we want to connect with the audience,” Jones said about the group’s live shows. “We’re going to be up there dancing and having a good time and want to make sure that the audience is doing the same. I guarantee you will dance.”
Cold Blood Club performs 8 p.m. Jan. 10 at Milkboy, 1100 Chestnut St. For more information or tickets, call 215-922-6455 or visit www.coldbloodclub.com.