With their 2016 album, Right Way Round, Moossa is the new band in town with four other albums under their belt.
With their 2016 album, Right Way Round, Moossa is the new band in town with four other albums under their belt.
Right Way Round comes after Moossa has taken a few years’ off from creating and performing music, but the new tunes on display show off a confident ease of execution and thematic consistency. The band refers to their sound as “retro soul,” and there’s definitely a classic feel to the album- the music is smooth and easy to listen to, but active enough to keep you going on an overnight road trip. It puts you in mind of Bob Dylan or The Band.
With Moossa celebrating its fifteenth year together, this album shows off the talents of some Richmond musical veterans. Ryan Davis plays bass and is the primary songwriter. “Right Way Round” features vocal harmonies with multiple members of the band, but Nancy Waldman takes the lead on vocals with powerful and expressive singing.
Trey Batts plays lead guitar with bluesy stylings and Dennis Vignola keeps the rhythm going on drums. The album was recorded at Richmond’s own Minimum Wage Recording with Lance Koehler.
The past few years have been a busy time for the members of Moossa. Instead of performing, members have been solidifying their careers, going to graduate school, and getting married.
After clearing some major life mile stones, the band decided to recommit to its music. “We really questioned, ‘are we gonna keep doing this?’” said Waldman. “And we as a group said yes, we’re gonna do it, because we love to do it and we love making music with each other.”
This period devoted to their careers and personal lives also gave the group the stability they needed to pursue their music more effectively. “It’s kind of awesome to have this as an outlet again,” said John Moossa.
Moossa has been referred to as a “jam band,” but they haven’t previously committed to a single type of music. On a single album, they might move between three or four different distinct genres. “We’ve definitely been accused- and praised- for being all over the place in the past,” said Batts.
Right Way Round is a bit different, though. “We’ve become more focused in ‘Right Way Round,’” said Moossa. “It’s definitely the most cohesive effort we’ve put out to date.”
Batts, Waldman, and Moossa point to bassist Ryan Davis as a major source of this thematic cohesion. Davis, who has taken a greater role in songwriting as the band has gone on, wrote most of the songs on Right Way Round in a creative rush after he bought a Fender P bass and started experimenting with the sound of the instrument.
Before using the Fender P in the development of Right Way Round, Davis used a bass with an active pickup, which has a bright sound and can be very precise. The Fender P, though, is a passive pickup, and this changed the texture of Davis’s music. “It sounds kinda muddy and muffled,” said Batts, describing the new bass. “But it’s a sound, and when you mix it in with everything else, it literally is what spurred Ryan [Davis] to write this album.”
The band sees Right Way Round as a way to get back into the Richmond music scene. With their absence in the past few years, they think that they might not be as recognizable as they used to be.
So, they’ll be doing a few shows in the meantime. “We have to re-introduce ourselves,” said Moosa. “Trey kinda put this best, even while we were starting to do this record, like, ‘hey, we’re the new kids on the block with five records under our belt.’”
Among those shows is the 8th Annual Hull Street Festival in Manchester, in the South Side of Richmond, VA.
The Hull Street Festival is organized by the Hull Street Merchants Association and aims to celebrates the Old Manchester Community as well as draw attention to the variety of local shops along the Hull Street Corridor. The event runs from 12 to 7 PM, and Moossa will play from 5 to 7 that evening.
The band plans to showcase eight or nine songs from their new album at the Hull Street show, but they also plan on dusting off some of their old tunes- and they bet they’ll hook you even if you haven’t heard them play before.
“People’re gonna dance and they’re gonna enjoy the diversity of the selection,” said Moossa. “This album is retro soul, it’s funky, it’s toe tappin, a lot of our songs are like that- but we also have some nice ballads, if you will.”
Moossa’s album “Right Way Round” can be found at online retailers like CDBaby, iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon. You can also give them a listen at Soundcloud.
