Blue Sinatra Flyer
The industry of music hasn’t really changed all that much over time. It’s about originality, talent, and a live performance that keeps the fans moving. BLUE SINATRA is a band that has a funky, rock-out with your socks out, bob your head sort of style that truly makes you want to move.
The vibrant group consists of Greg Harrigan lead singer/emcee/keyboards/guitarist and is what some could call a renaissance man of musical talents. The thorough resume doesn’t end there either. Mike Garth the drummer pounds away with jazz like precision keeping the sound honest and persistently rocking. Steve Bickel rips the saxophone with a bangingly smooth style. Charlie Ortiz rips the guitar as if his fingers were soft steel metacarpals plucking the very tunes our ears starve to hear. The latest addition to this motley crew (no pun intended) is Corey Bosner who seems to string along a bass line that can literally tear panties from the waistlines of young dancing women.
BLUE SINATRA is a verifiable Voltron of talents combined and assembled to rock out shows with disgusting versatility accompanied by a juggernaut stage performance. These are their words
I’ve seen Blue Sinatra’s myspace page and the quoting headline reads, “Voltron Music”. Is that a direct reference to Voltron himself or are you just a big fan like I am?
(Greg) VOLTRON is an almighty powerful creature formed from 5 lions and we feel like we have to have that mind set on stage, plus its always a competition to have a cool headline on your myspace page with other bands, and “Rock n’ Roll Karate” was already taken by our friends, “Case of the Mondays.”
Alright in all seriousness; great bands like Blue Sinatra always have great influences themselves. You guys cover a lot of ground when you put an album together. One song is particularly different than another song and yet the potency of the music never diminishes. Do you think this gives Blue Sinatra a versatility not commonly seen in other bands?
(Greg) I definitely agree that our styles our versatile and it’s probably because we like so many styles of music. I’ve always been more a “song” person over a “style” person. If the song is good, then I dig it, no matter what the style is, but its even better if the band can deliver it “live.”
(Charlie) Yeah I agree, I definitely think it adds to our identity as a band. I’ve always been into bands like Zeppelin and Beck and I think those bands just try and do whatever feels natural no matter what the style is and it always sound like them. I think we’re similar because we never really try to sound like anything. We all just have really diverse influences and when we have an idea we just run with it and what we end up with is us- regardless of the style.
Blue Sinatra has a monthly performance at Wicked Willy’s. How does it feel to have Wicked Willy’s as your home field advantage?
(Greg) WW has been nothing but good to us. For being an out of town band, that venue has allowed to us to see what works with the NYC crowd and it’s been great. We’re hoping to build more in NY as venues in Philly are rapidly diminishing.
(Charlie) WW is a blast and there is always a great crowd and it’s awesome to see the same faces show after show- especially when they bring new friends out to listen for the first time. I’m really happy to have a place on Bleecker that supports us and allows us to develop a large following.
How did you fall into the guitar as a musical interest? When did you start playing the guitar and at what age did you start to see your talent really breaking through?
(Charlie) Well I’m still hoping to see my talent really break through one day, lol. I started playing when I was 15 after hearing ‘Dazed and Confused’ by Led Zeppelin. I was in the car with my dad and was just like ‘Damn, I need to be able to do that!” and that was pretty much that. And of course a few really good teachers helped me out along the way.
How did Blue Sinatra go about bringing bass player Corey Bosner aboard? Were you all friends beforehand?
(Charlie) We put the word out that we needed a new bass player and Corey contacted us saying he was interested. We held a whole bunch of auditions for like 3 months but as soon as Corey came out we were all like ‘hell yeah, this is the guy!’ We still made him do a few callbacks but that’s mostly cause we just wanted to see how bad he wanted it, and we’re a bunch of assholes.
Who are some artists or groups that you think are just…cooler than the other side of the pillow?
(Charlie) LOL that’s a great question man! I actually can’t stop listening to this band Greg turned me onto, their called Under the Influence of Giants and they are as cool as any pillow I’ve ever had.
(Greg) Definitely “P.I.C.” from NY, they’re my favorite unsigned band that is really doing the best thing for hip hop right now. They should be so much bigger than they are and they are the most humble band I know.
Should we be expecting some incredible stuff from you guys since you’ve been working with Brian McTear?
(Greg) Most definitely, we’re very excited to actually invest in a producer like McTear. It’s definitely going to sound different than anything we’ve done, but still the same if that makes any sense. It will still be Blue Sinatra, just a newer, better version I believe. Put it this way, before we were Go-Bots, now we will be Transformers.
(Charlie) LOL, you a crazy robot loving man g! I think the new material is the strongest we’ve ever done and I think McTear is the perfect guy to get it all down. All I can say is keep your ear to the ground and listen for it soon. You be the judge, if you can handle an autobot ass-kicking of course!
