The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

The independent newspaper of the University of Iowa community since 1868

The Daily Iowan

A cup of hot buttered brew

One sip of Hot Buttered Rum can leave listeners addicted.

The mouth-watering mixture is made up of San Francisco band members Aaron Redner (fiddle, electric and acoustic mandolins), Bryan Horne (double bass), Nat Keefe (guitar), Erik Yates (banjo, guitars, woodwinds), and newest member Matt Butler (drums and percussion). All members of the group sing vocals as well.

Hot Buttered Rum, along with Mr. Baber’s Neighbors, will play the Yacht Club, 13 S. Linn St., at 9 p.m. Friday. Admission is $12 in advance and $15 the day of the show.

While Hot Buttered Rum has toured for seven years, the brew has yet to cool down. Its most recent album, Limbs Akimbo, released in September, follows “a very different pattern than most of our material,” said Hot Buttered Rum’s multi-instrumentalist Erik Yates.

Last year, right before recording the album, Butler spiced up Hot Buttered Rum with percussion and drums.

“[Percussion] has raised the energy at our live shows a lot,” Yates said. “The instrument itself can really be a band all by itself.”

Limbs Akimbo is Hot Buttered Rum’s first release since 2005’s Well-Oiled Machine. That album was based on the band’s Bio-Bus, which the members bought on e-Bay.

“We were looking for a good vehicle to tour,” Yates said. “We didn’t know we were going to become the poster kids for the bio-diesel revolution.”

Hot Buttered Rum’s website contains a whole green feature dedicated to the description and design of “Seana,” the name they gave their bus. The bus used to be fueled with waste vegetable oil from restaurants, but now, it mainly runs on bio-diesel. Because of the band’s number of instruments — Yates alone plays the banjo, flute, guitar, Dobro, accordion, and clarinet — a big tour bus is crucial.

With so many instruments, the music might get lost in the shuffle. But Hot Buttered Rum’s business manager and longtime friend Michael Scott said the musicians’ skill is striking.

“I think people will just walk away blown away by the bands’ talent, musically and vocally,” he said. “It’s just a great atmosphere; their music tends to create a realm.”

Yates plays many more instruments outside of the band and described himself as a jack of all trades.

Rather than spending a large amount of time mastering one instrument, he enjoys learning how to produce melodies on a variety of instruments.

“I played classical piano, and then joined the marching band and the jazz band playing saxophone or a bass guitar,” Yates said. “It’s always come easy enough to me where I’ve been able to juggle five or six different instruments, and that’s my personality.”

His music comes through on Limbs Akimbo. The record’s producer, Tim Bluhm, had a distinct idea for the disc. Yates said what may sound good from a instrumentalist’s point of view may not always seem appealing to the audience.

“Working with Tim was really good for us in that way — it really did kind of school us on how to improve our song-crafting sensibilities,” Yates said. He referred to Bluhm as the “butcher,” because he chopped up the songs in order to capture a new definition.

Also capturing new definition is the release of Hot Buttered Rum’s iPhone application, which features the band’s tour dates, discography, blogs, and videos.

Now, fans can carry a cup of Hot Buttered Rum everywhere.

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