The Daily O’Collegian

The Texas band The Band of Heathens plan to give Stillwater a live show featuring not one or two lead singers who harmonize, but three.

The band will play at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at the Tumbleweed alongside No Justice, Stoney LaRue and Reckless Kelly.

The Band of Heathens has three principal songwriters — Colin Brooks, Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist. These three frontmen sing, write and play lead guitar.

Seth Whitney serves as the band’s bassist. Drummer John Chipman joined the lineup in 2007.

Having three frontmen is one reason Jurdi said he thinks his band is unique.

“I think, in general, any band is unique because of the ingredients that are involved in the band, wherever those particular members are at any point in time,” Jurdi said.

“I think musically, for us, it’s the fact that we have three singers and songwriters and guitar players. That, coupled with the harmony singing that we do, give it a different little twist.”

Jurdi said he has no idea what kind of a show the audience should expect.

“It really just depends on the day,” Jurdi said. “It’s definitely going to be a high-energy type of thing. We’re just going to dive into it, and it should be pretty rockin’.”

The band will reach out to a mixed audience.

“I think the people that generally come to our shows are big fans of music in general,” Jurdi said. “They may have heard of us through the Red Dirt scene, through the Texas music scene, or they may have heard of us because they listen to the Americana radio station or through a friend.

“But the one thing that we’ve been finding is that the people that come to our shows are pretty knowledgeable about music.”

In 2006, Brooks, Jurdi and Quist shared the stage every week at a local bar in Austin called Momo’s. There, they called themselves “The Good Time Supper Club.” The shows were unrehearsed and mainly improvised.

“It was literally like hanging out in your living room, drinking beer, playing songs and having a good old time with it,” Jurdi said.

One day, a misprint in the local papers called the group “The Heathens.” The name stuck, and that’s what they’ve been known as ever since.

In 2007, the band received the award for “Best New Band” at the Austin Music Awards.

The band has spent more than 20 weeks in the top 10 on the Americana radio charts. It was in the top five for 13 of those weeks, and for two weeks it was No. 1.

The band released its self-titled debut studio album in May, preceded by two live records. The songs on the albums are all original works.

The band leans on its original music during performances but also tries to throw in covers of artists that the members admire.

The band’s influences are all over the map, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones to more soulful sounds like Otis Redding and Al Green.

“Everybody is into different stuff, and the cool thing about this band is that we influence each other by bringing the kind of bands we’ve experienced,” Jurdi said.

“If your ears are open and you’re interested in different stuff, I think it will be a good time.

“You come out, and what could be bad about going out to see a show and hanging out with some friends, having a few drinks and dancing around? That doesn’t sound like too much work to me.”