Market Days participants Pat and the Hats have a sound that is somewhat difficult to categorize. Even band member Brenden Harisiades had a hard time getting too specific.
“We always get asked that, and I guess the blanket phrase would be original rock and roll,” Harisiades said. “But we touch upon a little bit of each genre out there, I guess.”
And then there’s this classification, from yourband.info: “Imagine if the Beatles met Elvis Costello and then Iggy Pop stopped by to play Monopoly.”
It’s a fitting board game choice. Iggy is shirtless enough that his torso might as well be a community chest.
Anyway, perhaps it’s best if you make your own judgments on the musical stylings of Pat and the Hats, who will be making their Market Days debut a little more than a year after coming together as a unit following singer/songwriter Patrik Gochez’s original album, Heavy Loader. They do indeed blend many different styles, ranging from traditional rock to the occasional hint of a jazzy standard, a persity born out of varied musical backgrounds.
Harisiades was in jazz band in high school, spent the majority of his high school life in funk bands and later toiled in cover rock and roll bands. The rest of the band has similar ranging backgrounds, including a degree from Berklee for Gochez.
Thanks in part to that unique sound, the group has enjoyed growing success in the time they’ve been together, which barely spans more than a full turn of the calendar.
“We’re slowly growing more and more,” Harisiades said. “We’ve played in Manchester, down at Tupelo Music Hall in Vermont, we’ve played in Manhattan. It’s going really well.”
Though the band is relatively new, the connections for the members run deep – Harisiades met Gochez through Jason Lane, a mutual music teacher, and drummer Bobby Rice went to high school with Gochez and also studied under Lane.
“It was all kind of very natural,” Harisiades said of the band formation.
The group can be heard playing tracks from the aforementioned Heavy Loader album at most recent shows, but there are plans in the works for another release down the road. Though they aren’t in the studio yet, Harisiades said the members already have “more than album’s worth” of new original material. Gochez is the driving force behind the songwriting, which isn’t something Harisiades sees changing anytime in the near future.
Playing live remains a passion for the group, which has already been added to next year’s Camp-N-Jam lineup after playing the Davisville festival this summer.
“We played Saturday on the main stage and attracted some new ears,” Harisiades said. “It was great, just getting on a big stage like that with good sound.”
A big stage isn’t always required, though – Pat and the Hats have enjoyed playing in Concord a number of times, with stops at The Draft and True Brew Barista as well as an appearance on a large outdoor stage at the Smokestack Center to celebrate the release of Heavy Loader.
Market Days will represent a return to Concord for a group that is barely more than a year into a venture it hopes will turn into a long-term career path.
“The best way to put it is we’re definitely career-oriented with the band, with no exact timeline,” Harisiades said. “Because who really knows? But we’re all on the same page as far as the three of us really wanting to make this a career.”
