NORTH WIND AND THE SUN

north wind and the sun is a blues driven rock trio fronted by singer/guitarist “Texas Butter” Todd Balke, powered by the drums of Brook Storey Stermer, and glued together with booming bass lines from Aaron Jankowski. Piecing together a couple of chords with a repetitive bluesy riff over a strong backbeat; most of the songs are forged from old blues, rock, soul, folk, and country classics. Lyrically, the themes are often autobiographical but veiled with cliches of angst, love, and other internal struggles. Sonically, everything is straight forward, nothing fancy. The guitar riffs are never completely clean, the riffs and changes feel familiar, the beats pull everything together while pushing the songs ahead. In early 2019, Brook and Todd used an old portastudio to record 6 of their original songs in the basement for a demo/EP released on YouTube. During the fall of 2020, they released a single with a music video, shot and recorded in a cold garage by Aaron Jankowski. Aaron joined the band shortly after. The band has been putting together a mixture of songs that range from acoustic folk to thumping riff-rock for an upcoming full length album(November 16, 2024) and plans to play live wherever people will come and listen.