Doing Things Their OWN way: The BellRays

You might think a band with a hard-to-pigeonhole style, one that’s far enough away from a major city to escape media attention but still close enough to compete with its bands for gigs, and especially a band that sticks to its guns on doing things its own way might find it tough to survive for very long.

But not every band is The BellRays, and they’ve done far more than survive. Powered by the brawny but soulful voice of Lisa Kekaula alongside Bob Vennum’s blistering yet tasteful guitar, the band continues its three-decades-and-counting musical run in which it has generated almost a dozen albums, built an audience stretching from the Inland Empire to Italy and accomplished what legions of musicians only ever dream of – make a living from their music.

“I don’t know that I ever saw this as a means to make a living,” confessed Vennum, who along with Kekaula talked to Garagerocktopia via social media video from their home in Riverside, CA. “All I had known up to that point was that we had bands, and then you go to work the next morning. I never saw us being what we ended up being, this career that we made for ourselves.”

Known for a short time as the Rosethorns early on, Kekaula, Vennum and company forged a reputation for passionate ferocity at smallish venues such as Spanky’s and The Barn at the University of California, Riverside. The music has died in many of those places, but The BellRays have never stopped rocking.

While Vennum indicated some surprise that the band became his bread and butter, Kekaula said that, while the way she did it was fairly unanticipated, she had few doubts her living would be from music.

“I always wanted to do music,” affirmed Kekaula. “No matter what, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I worked for the university, I did work other jobs, but I decided those weren’t what I wanted to do all the time. I didn’t think that far ahead to say ‘I want to be with this specific band for this long,’ but I knew I was going to be doing music no matter what. And I’m really grateful that it has been this band for this long.”

The requisite primer on The BellRays: The band’s mission statement, "Blues is the teacher... Punk is the preacher" pretty much sums it up, though the band isn’t shy about throwing a little gospel, maybe a little old-school metal and more than a little old-fashioned r&b into the mix as well.

Kekaula has an extensive resume, but some highlights also include a turn as vocalist for the modern-day incarnation of MC5, and some memorable cuts recorded with Stooges guitarist James Williamson. But for Kekaula and Vennum, it’s not all slash and burn. The two also have another band, Lisa and the Lips, a no-nonsense old-school soul/r&b band, itself with no inability to rock.

Invariably, Kekaula is compared to Aretha Franklin, but there’s a tone that also suggests a little Bettye Lavette, a little Esther Phillips plus male singers like Jr. Walker and David Johanson. Meanwhile, Vennum’s style recalls equal parts Glen Matlock, Wilko Johnson and Buddy Guy. Both Kekaula and Vennum say there was no deliberate attempt to create a specific sound, that it was always about making the music they felt inside.

“We weren’t getting any help from anyone at the time,” Kekaula explained, discussing the band’s earlier days. “We were creating our own spot. We didn’t really line up to be what the punk rockers thought we should be, or what any black female vocalist was singing at the time.”

That refusal to conform did butt up against its fair share of closemindedness, but Vennum also suggested that it also helped The BellRays to ride out the kind of fan and music biz fickleness that has torpedoed the careers of so many once-promising bands and artists.

“We got to skate around a lot of scenes as they died off,” said Vennum. “There were all these scenes – the ska punk scene, the grunge scene, garage, all that. We’d end up on dates with all those kinds of bands, but then we were able to go and play a bar, or go and play another big stage, because we weren’t a part of any scene. It never looked weird for us to do that. To a lot of people we were always just that rockin’ band, just doing what we do.”

Yet Kekaula and Vennum didn’t mask just a little annoyance that the band was never signed to a major record label. As is clear to anyone who has watched the business side of rock and roll, the music biz frequently fails to distinguish itself as a meritocracy. Despite earning the accolades of critics and fans alike, that exalted deal was never quite made.

“I always felt like what we were doing definitely warranted one,” said Kekaula. She recalled a conversation with one record exec who expressed interest in signing the band but then suggested meddling with the very qualities that made The BellRays what The BellRays were all about.

“There were certain terms people wanted. Some didn’t want me to stay with the band. One executive told us ‘I’m a fan of the band’ and he tells me ‘you’re a stand out performer – you have to look past this.’ We’re just meeting him, and that’s what he’s saying to me about what we’re doing.”

“He’s wasn’t there to propel our musical vision. He was interested in a musical vision of his own, specifically the one in where he thinks I fit. It never occurs to them that all those legendary rock and roll bands that they like – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones – they were all trying to be like Ike and Tina Turner. They were all white guys trying to do it, and it’s OK for a white guy to try to sound like a black person fronting a band, but it’s not OK to actually be a black woman fronting a band.”

I’m not saying it’s not OK for those bands to do that, I’m just saying the real thing is not one of those things that’s at the top of their list to promote.”

There’s also plenty of history showing how the labels have signed bands, meddled with them from

the boardrooms, put out music that only faintly resembles what drew them to the band in the first place, then cutting bait once it looks like the investment is heading south. Vennum commented on just how ludicrous that mindset has been.

“We’re that band that doesn’t fit in and they come up and tell us how much they like us,” Vennum commented, “but then they say there aren’t any other bands like us. But there weren’t any bands like U2, and there weren’t any bands like REM either, and yet at the time they were getting all the money thrown at them. But they still wouldn’t look outside the box and say ‘and say ‘here’s a unique band, we don’t need to monkey with it, let’s put them out there and see what happens.”

The BellRays, partly by design and partly not, managed to steer clear of the bottom-line mentality. The major label contract often had a lot of strings attached anyway, and for better or for worse, that business model has all but disappeared. The rise of the DIY model opened up the chance for The BellRays to reach their audience without all the music biz malarkey.

“We’re finding out with technology now that you don’t have to tour and do a lot of the things you always had to do,” said Vennum. “You can find that 100, 150 people in whatever town you’re going to play to show up, and they can follow you. You can put yourself on a world-wide platform in 10 minutes if you learn a little bit about marketing and figure out what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. Any musical artist should be able to find 1000 people out there who likes what they’re doing and will support them.” 

“We still don’t fit into a lot of those boxes,” Kekaula confirmed, “and a lot of people think very narrow-mindedly about what music they like. But there are also a lot of open-minded people, and I’m always impressed by how many younger people that find us, who tell me ‘I never knew anything like you was even out there.’ There are so many BellRays fans out here that don’t even know they’re BellRays fans but they know they’re craving what we’ve got to give.” 

“People are realizing if you stick with your dream and your vision, and you have the wherewithal, you can put it out there, and actually see what’s happening with your music. Facebook isn’t only great for overthrowing governments – it’s also great for finding out who your real fans are. “ 

The band is not exactly an overtly political band, but neither are they shy about speaking up about what’s going on in the world. Thus far, 2020 seems to be shaping up as the kind of year that makes 1968 look like 1958, particularly with the Covid-19 pandemic, the recent fallout from the brutal death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, all packed tight in a social and political environment already sharply polarized, especially here in the United States.

“I think this pandemic is one of the best things that could have happened for humanity,” said Kekaula. “And I’m not saying that like ‘oh. It’s great that we have all this sickness.’ I’m saying it because it has exposed the fact that everything is so totally messed up, with Trump’s appointees, what his priorities were, and how we got so far behind having an answer to this pandemic. It’s also given us the ability to have a new awakening to racism in America, a problem that has needed to be dealt with for over 400 years.“

“A lot of people are saying they don’t like the conversation, that it’s so uncomfortable, that we’re not ready. But for some things you’re never going to be ready, just like you’re never ready to have children. You just deal with it because that’s what’s necessary to propel the race and to propel the good will of humanity.”

“I feel like right now we’re being given a choice, we’re being asked ‘are you ready to be better humans?’ Or are we just going to go for the low-hanging fruit. “

As is so often the case, bad times bring out the good inside many people. During this time of pandemic and economic chaos, the band has found ways to cheer people up with some free doses of their fist-pumping brand of rock and roll.

“We look at it as our public service to the world to keep everybody in good spirits,” said Kekaula. “We started with rock shows on our Facebook page, which are at 11 a.m. PST every Tuesday and Thursday. Those are usually four or five songs. We also do shows on Instagram, what we call ‘single song therapy.’ Go in there, get one song, and have a better outlook on the day.” Kekaula says they will also soon be netcasting a series in which they talk about cover songs and some of the many artists and music that have been influential to them.

We’ve talked about our home town of Riverside here on the blog before. Though some great artists have emerged from here, it is perpetually in the musical shadows of Los Angeles and Orange County, and for as long as anyone can remember, it has been the archtypical bedroom community.

A lot of people have tried to change that image, and slowly, word is finally sinking in that Riverside is not a satellite of LA or OC, but very much its own thing. Yet, The BellRays have frequently been encouraged to claim to be a Los Angeles band, something they aren’t so keen on claiming.

“We had a guitar player who used to tell us ‘just tell people we’re from LA, because they’ll understand that better,’” recalled Kekaula, “but that always felt like a lie. So we just went huge with ‘we’re from Riverside, people.’ And we also tell people this too: we come from the most beautiful place in the world. If you catch Riverside on the right day, it is the most captivating place ever. And with the pandemic…the pollution is down, the traffic is down, and there are so many good days to look at the sky and you see how beautiful this city is and see that it’s just blessed.”

Don't Forget to listen to Garagerocktopia Radio, alternating with Blue Mood, Tuesday nights on KUCR Radio, 88.3 FM Riverside, California, where you can hear artists like The BellRays, plus many others who have appeared on our hallowed pages and whose music has inspired us. Can't tune in live? No problem! head over to Mixcloud and catch the show there.

We have some other features already in the works here at Garagerocktopia. Artists have been sending us some very cool stuff. As always, we don’t make any guarantees in stone but we’re happy to say we’ve gotten a lot of very promising music sent to us, and we’re always happy to spread the word about about bands that are playing the way-out kinds of music we profile here. Send us a line and we’ll talk.

Also, we do have a Facebook page for this blog. We don’t put personal stuff on it – no pictures of grandkids (which we don't have anyway) or our dinners or politics or anything like that. What we do post are announcements about upcoming features, maybe extra stuff about the bands, and any cool music, movies or TV Shows we stumble across that might have even the most tangential connection with the music featured here. While we don't spend all day thinking about it, we do like "likes"  and "follows" on both Facebook and Mixcloud if you're so inclined ...