The Cruisin’ Deuces
Image: Image by: Brendan Burke.
Listening to the music of The Cruisin’ Deuces you would be hard pressed to guess that the members of the band were born and raised in the heartland of Sydney’s inner west. In just over two years the band have built a solid reputation for themselves within the emerging hipster subculture of this particular genre.
Obviously the biggest question anybody has when they hear The Cruisin’ Deuces is, where did this love and passion for rockabilly come from? As frontman Zane Banks explained the Americana, rockabilly and honky-tonk influences were slowly impregnating the souls of both himself and his brother Jy-Perry Banks from a very young age.
“Our parents were music teachers and very into American music from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. So that meant when we were growing up Elvis, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, The Beatles and a lot of those other rockabilly musicians like Chuck Berry, Little Richard were just played and became the soundtrack to our adolescents.” reflected Zane.
Fortunately for both Zane and Jy-Perry being from a major capital city provided them with the opportunity to pursue their passion as a career. “I’ve noticed that there is a healthy following in most western cities because rockabilly is a very passionate subculture,” explained Zane, “we’re really fortunate to live in Sydney though simply because the size of the scene means we can perform quite a bit and we have a really loyal bunch of followers.”
Earlier this year The Cruisin’ Deuces continued to take major steps in order to build this following even more, in particular outside of Sydney, by heading to the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Due to the way the Tamworth festival is organised the demographics tend to be incredibly varied in terms of age, tastes and hometowns.
“The best thing about it is that hardly anyone you play for is actually from Tamworth so you can play to a thousand people over the course of the day and most of those people go back to their hometowns which means you have a following should you tour in the future.”
Returning home now to perform at the Seymour Centre as part of the Courtyard Sessions series is a “wonderful honour” for The Cruisin’ Deuces who simply ask Sydneysiders to don their finest “frock or Hawaiian shirt, come down and just hear some good old classic American music.”
Mar 10, 6-9pm. Seymour Centre, Corner of City Rd & Cleveland St, Chippendale. FREE. Info: https://www.seymourcentre.com/events/event/courtyard-sessions-2017/
