The Bad Mama’s Blues Band will play Friday night at Funk ‘n Waffles, featuring songs from their latest EP, “There Goes The Rent.” For die-hard fans, lead singer Emily Pastuf said audience members can expect an absolute “rager.”

The band is no stranger to the waffle joint. Pastuf and bassist Zak Masoud said the food and sound system keep the band coming back, but it’s the venue’s crowd they remember the most.

“There’s so many young kids that hang out there,” Pastuf said. “(Funk ‘n Waffles) is the one place where we can finally get into younger people listening to us.”

Charley Orlando, the talent buyer at Funk ‘n Waffles, said that each Bad Mama’s Blues Band show is always high-energy and fun, with audience members reacting like “dancing fools.”

Opening for The Bad Mama’s Blues Band is rock ‘n roll group The Primates. Chris Blessing, the singer and guitarist for the band, thinks the two groups will be a perfect fit.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Blessing said. “I’ve gone out and seen them a few times … but we haven’t actually arranged anything together so this is our first time.”

Blessing said audience members can expect an original set, along with a few covers.

The Bad Mama’s Blues Band formed in 2017, but Pastuf and Masoud had known each other for more than six years before establishing the group. Since then, the band won the Best Blues award for “There Goes The Rent” at the 2018 Syracuse Area Music Awards.

“We wrote the EP last year and that gained a lot of attention,” Pastuf said. This year, Pastuf said, they plan to write a full-length, all-original album.

Masoud describes the band’s music as swampy blues jam rock. Although the members of the band are all from the central New York area, each person brings a different musical styling to the table.

Will Fuegel, the keyboard player, has more of a taste in country music, while guitarist Jeff Swidoski and drummer Rob Zaccaria have more of a taste in jazz and alternative, respectively, Masoud said.

The band’s songwriting process is a group effort. Pastuf, who doesn’t play an instrument, will come to her band members with a song idea, and they bring it to life.

“When Emily has her song — a framework of where we’re going — she’ll write her words and then as a group we kind of materialize it and bring it all together,” Masoud said.

Working together as a group is one of the band’s strengths. Rather than putting together a meticulous setlist, the band prepares for each show by getting a feel for the energy of the crowd in order to decide which song to play next.

“I think me and Zak especially like to go and feel the crowd out and see what that’s gonna be like,” Pastuf said. “We’ll kind of just wing it when it comes to setlists.”

For Masoud, playing to the room is the most important thing about each performance. He said since the band played at Funk ‘n Waffles last month, the group will try not to do the same performance.

“We kind of try to hopefully surprise people when they’ve seen us before, just change the setlist up to make it interesting every time,” Masoud said.

When asked about their plans for the new year, The Bad Mama’s Blues Band members said they hope to get out of Syracuse and come back with some miles on the road under their belt.

The Bad Mama’s Blues Band will perform with opening band The Primates on Friday at Funk ‘n Waffles in downtown Syracuse. The show starts at 9 p.m., with doors opening at 8 p.m.

Published on January 13, 2019 at 10:15 pm