Alabama Music Makers: Mauldin and the Watchmen fuse metal and country
Mauldin and the Watchmen are, from left, Jesse Guffey, Blake Mauldin, Michael Baldwin and Christian Licavoli. (contributed)
A quartet made up half and half of Alabamians and Georgians is on a double genre-bending mission to fuse two types of music to create something new.
Mauldin and the Watchmen are fusing country and metal together to make music the band hopes will appeal to fans of both types of music as well as those open to new sounds.
Blake Mauldin is the lead singer and guitarist from Birmingham fronting the group, which also consists of bassist Jesse Guffey from Clay, Alabama, and lead guitarist Christian Licavoli and drummer Michael Baldwin, both from Savannah, Georgia.
“A lot of people are just metal fans. A lot of people are just country fans. I’m kind of hoping that maybe we can bridge that gap a little bit and have people be a little more open-minded when it comes to different kinds of music,” Mauldin said.
Alabama Music Makers: Mauldin and the Watchmen look to create unique sound in fusion of country and metal from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
Mauldin has written music that focused more on Southern rock or modern country.
“We decided we would mix our genres and try to kind of make something new,” Mauldin said.
Mauldin admits the band is not yet where it wants to be in the mixing of genres and creating the sound it seeks.
“It gets better every time we play together and we’re learning a lot about how to play with each other,” he said. “It’s getting better and better.”
Those who have heard the band live seem to really enjoy what they hear.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback creating kind of this country-metal fusion kind of thing,” Guffey said.
The band has recorded an EP titled “The Watchmen,” which it plans to release soon on Spotify and other platforms. You can also catch them live as they are putting together new performance dates.
You can follow Mauldin and the Watchmen on Facebook and YouTube.
