Josh Hoyer and Soul Colossal bring the funk to Center Stage

EBS STAFF

BIG SKY – The Music in the Mountains summer concert series continues on Thursday, June 28, with the funky R&B grooves of Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal. Big Sky’s Town Center Park opens at 6 p.m. with music commencing at 7:15 p.m.

Inspired by the sounds of Stax, Motown, Muscle Shoals, New Orleans, Philly and San Francisco, Hoyer and his band are known for crossing musical boundaries of style and era, driven by an intent to “have the crowd dancing so much they forget even their smallest troubles.”

It’s the band’s third tour through Montana, and they are looking forward to returning.

“Everyone we’ve met in Montana has been really cool and genuine. Our kind of people,” Hoyer wrote in an email to EBS. “The altitude is challenging but the mountain vibe always lifts us up.”

Hailing from Lincoln, Nebraska, Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal’s sound is a blend of Hoyer’s soulful vocals and the high-energy funk, R&B and soul grooves of his back-up band.

No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music might describe them best: “If James Brown and Otis Redding had a love child, it would be Josh Hoyer. The Lincoln, Nebraska, soul shouter, and his band of merry soulsters, Soul Colossal, deliver a sound so big, so funky, so wring-the-sweat-out-of-you energetic that it reaches through the speakers and shakes you until you start moving to its groove.”

Hoyer formed Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal in 2012. The five-piece band includes fellow Lincoln musicians Benjamin Kushner on guitar, Blake DeForest on trumpet, bassist Mike Keeling, and drummer Larell Ware. In January, Hoyer released “The End of the Night,” a three-song EP and solo side project with Nashville hit-songwriters Jay Knowles and Jon Coleman. Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal will release their fourth full length record in August, followed by a seven-week European tour before the record’s U.S. release.

In 2017, Hoyer was a contestant on NBC’s The Voice, and the band completed their first European tour, a 27-city stint capped with a live album release from their show in Brussels, Belgium. Between 2015 and 2017, the band played more than 150 shows in 32 states each year, opening for big-name acts such as George Clinton, Charles Bradley, Booker T. Jones, and Muscle Shoals Revue.

Hoyer said concert-goers should come prepared to have a good time. “Our music, 90 percent of which is original, has that funk for the body, great musicianship for the mind and lyrics for the soul,” he wrote. “We always leave every ounce of energy on that stage and intend on raising people’s spirits through the power of soul and funk.”

Visit bigskyarts.org for more information.