Jamie Kent and the Options will be coming to the Iron Horse at 10 p.m. on Saturday, April 9. Jamie Kent is the front man, accompanied by The Options, which generally refers to Rhees Williams on bass and Tim Boucher on keyboard, guitar and vocals. Their music is heavily influenced by jazz and rock with a little bit of country mixed in.
The main aspect of Jamie Kent and the Options, though, is the performance. It’s obvious that they have fun on stage and that energy transfers to the crowd. “I love performing,” Kent said in a recent interview with the Daily Collegian. “That’s what I’m always trying to do, and create with our live shows is some sort of performance aspect that, you know, it’s like the music’s there and you’re loving the music and just really having a good time and that’s what it should be.”
Jamie Kent and the Options have two albums, “Neoteny,” the debut album and “Basically Unplugged EP.” One of Kent’s favorite songs to perform from the albums is “Mama Sing.” He explained that, “when we’re with the trio at least, you really lock in to this awesome groove and play off each other musically in a way that we don’t in any other song, and the vocals, we have this locked-down harmony part that hits people and I’m a big fan of that.”
Kent met Williams at the party of a mutual friend. “I think he was playing with another local songwriter,” Kent said, “and then she moved to California and he stayed here and I was like, ‘You’re playing with me now!’” He added that, “Rhees is awesome because he’s unbelievably nasty at both electric and upright… and he is only 20.”
When Kent met Boucher, the keyboardist, he didn’t know he played piano. They’d recorded a song together called, “Nature Boy,” a sort of Dixieland funeral march, and at the time, Boucher was playing sousaphone. Six months later, Boucher emailed Kent asking if he needed a piano player. “I went and saw him and I was like, ‘Hell yeah. You’re in,’” he recalled
Kent’s influences include Cab Calloway, The Beatles, Sly and the Family Stone, Amos Lee and Jamie Cullum. He’s particularly drawn to artists like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
“I think that was a time in music that was unbelievable and it was all about the music and the musicians and the performance. Everyone went out to see live music then…it was just like this cool, hip atmosphere,” Kent said.
He got started in high school when he auditioned for “Pippin” because of a girl. When he was cast in a good role, he started considering getting more involved in music. “I started studying voice then and I picked up a guitar like the next year and it just kind of all snowballed from there.” Kent has studied voice for the last eight years.
Jamie Kent and the Options just returned to Northampton from a three-week tour of the U.S. Their tour – and Kent’s whole career – was funded by The Collective; according to the band’s website, jamiekent.com, The Collective is a community of “loyal fans, friends, and advisors” who support Kent’s career financially.
Of The Collective, Kent said, “People can invest in my career, and then in return they get free music, free tickets to shows, free merchandise and then they can vote on decisions like what the album artwork should be, what the first radio single should be, where we should tour.” The Collective currently has about 125 members. Kent hopes that this model will be adopted by other musicians and intends to eventually start a record label.
On the upcoming show at the Iron Horse, Kent said, “We’re trying to really fuse together some genres that are different from each other, but I think we’re doing it in a way that is at least pleasurable to the ear and really fun live… If you come to a concert we’re going to try to take you on a journey through both emotions and energy…You’ll see if you come to the Iron Horse!”
Tickets are $10 in advance and $13 at the door.
Lauren Scrima can be reached at [email protected].
