Groovy Guys: New rock trio looks to bring original music to Owensboro and beyond

May 17—When Owensboro musician Nick Cheek's band the Dead Gypsies broke up in 2015, he decided to try his hand at being a solo artist.

Now, Cheek, 34, along with his friends and fellow musicians — drummer Logan Howard, 36, and bassist Aaron Ray, 34 — are now part of one of Owensboro's newest and growing "blues groove" rock trio Nick Cheek & The Golden Hour.

While Cheek, Howard and Ray have been friends for years and have supported each other's musical endeavors, Cheek didn't start working with Ray until the two began to play with musician Jake Holder and ended up playing one of Cheek's original songs "Never Meant To Be This Way" the first time together.

The reception of the tune was positively received.

"That song did really well," Cheek said. "We played it several times that night and Aaron said some complimentary things about the songwriting and all that and that stuck with me for years."

Howard even joined Cheek one time on percussion.

However, Cheek said that he didn't reconnect with Howard and Ray for some time after.

Cheek ended up venturing out to Nashville in 2017 before moving to Evansville a year later, only to return to the music city in 2019 with Holder until the Cheek returned home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

While Cheek had his own material completed to an extent, he didn't have a plan of what to do with it.

"At that point, I really wasn't sure what was going to happen. I was in a relationship — honestly, a bad one — but that's what kind of brought me back up here," Cheek said. "After that, I really didn't have anybody to play with."

Cheek originally had the thought of just recording the songs himself in his home after purchasing new equipment but was uncertain of what his future in music was going to be.

"I genuinely thought that coming back home kind of meant maybe the death of everything," Cheek said. "Like I wasn't going to let it go because I just believed in the songs so much and still do, but I just knew that I was like, 'Man, I'm up against the wall right now.' I went to Nashville to find a band and just nothing could click."

While he had his doubts, Cheek ended up reconnecting with Ray by showing him rough demos of his work and it seemed to be the right fit from the start.

"We definitely share that musical chemistry and just the songwriting sensibilities," Ray said. "We both know where a song's going."

Ray suggested to Cheek about bringing Howard on board for the project, as Ray has performed with Howard for about 10 years and currently play together in the groups Galactic Foghorn and Whiskey Richard and the Shindiggers.

While Cheek was familiar with Howard's work, he didn't think about reaching out to Howard due his involvement in a number of groups.

"I never thought of that because Logan's been in (so) many bands and still is in several bands," Cheek laughed. "I never thought to ask because it's a tough thing, especially when you're trying to do original music, is to drag somebody away from potential paychecks to do something that isn't going to pay (much) right off the bat."

Since officially forming last August, Cheek has hailed the band "the best (freaking) group" he's ever been in.

"We noticed chemistry immediately, but (Aaron and Logan) already had chemistry, but it was by fate, or whatever that goes on in the universe, that once we started playing that we were like 'OK, this is (freaking) cool. This works,' " Cheek said.

After working on the material together and sharing some recorded demos with friends, the band decided to venture out to a Monday open mic night at Lamasco Bar and Grill in Evansville to test out their strongest four to five songs last fall.

The group ended up receiving a standing ovation, according to Cheek.

Cheek, Howard and Ray then went out to another open mic at Tidball's in Bowling Green before deciding to sign up for PorchFest OBKY auditions at Brasher's Lil' Nashville in April to compete for the final three spots on the 2022 lineup.

The band ended up advancing as one of the top three groups alongside the group Yellow Banks and the Evansville-based band DRK WTR.

The group currently has about two 40-minute sets of 20 original songs ready to show to the masses and have started booking upcoming shows.

They also made their way out to Whitesville to record three music videos, with one of them for their song "Til Morning's Dead" was released on Monday, which was sound engineered by Howard and produced by the group.

Their first official billing will be at Lure Seafood and Grille with Joshua Orion at 7 p.m. Thursday.

"We're all ready to grind. We all motivate each other," Ray said.

Cheek said the reaction to the original music has been surprising but pleasing nonetheless.

"You play for years doing what you do and doing covers and you get good reactions and you know when you play good. But that's always through the lens of what somebody else created," Cheek said. "...There's another ascension in what you're doing in music and then trying to get people that excited as they would about a cover song. That's been my ultimate goal as a songwriter is to push past and to really truly find something that is great about what I can do ...."

Despite Cheek's name being in the group's title, which was created months before Howard and Ray came on board, Cheek said that all three of them are represented equally.

"You can listen to the songs and you can focus in on Aaron, you can focus in on Logan or you can focus in on me," Cheek said. "You can pick whichever and find stuff and I love that .... There's no domination here. When I play a solo, they'd be right there doing something with me accenting that or if they're doing something, I'm accenting that. You're kind of like passing the ball around ...."

For the band, the mission is not to recreate the wheel, but rather to be themselves as authentically as they can, play good music and bring back the rock music they admired.

"I just want to be a (freaking) great band and I want that to be known and seen that all the work that we're doing is music first," Cheek said. "That's really all we're focused on is being a great ... band and writing good songs .... We really try to write great songs that blow our minds and ... we hope people take this in and are just like, '(Wow) man. They really just got up there and murdered and just left it all up there.' "

For more information about the band, visit facebook.com/GoldenhourNick.