For Flow Tribe, a visit to New Orleans City Park is a bike ride away.
“We have a lot of family here … I grew up a few blocks from City Park and a bunch of us live within a few blocks away from here. So we just ride our bikes over and enjoy the music,” John-Michael Early, the band’s harmonica player, said.
Flow Tribe returned home to the Voodoo Music and Art Experience to perform on the Ritual stage on Nov. 1.
Flow Tribe is a band comprised of six members that creates a funk, rock sound involving guitar, bass, drums, percussion, trumpet, harmonica and vocals. The band formed in 2004, in the backyard of bass player, Chad Penot. The six members all knew each other while in high school and spent the summer jamming out together.
“By the end of the summer we were like ‘man we got something going,’” K.C. O’Rorke, Flow Tribe’s vocalist and trumpet player said.
The six members parted ways for college, but when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, they felt the need to come back together and get the band up and running. O’Rorke said it was “kind of a life changing moment” and they couldn’t waste this opportunity to all come home and “really represent the city in a good way.” After the decision was made, he said, it all snowballed from there.
Early said with the incredible support of people from near and far, New Orleans was able to rebuild and get back on its feet.
“There’s obviously like a joy and a passion of living here, it’s a little different, a little quirky, it doesn’t always run efficiently but … no one will tell you it’s not a passionate place,” Early said.
Along with New Orleans, O’Rorke and Early said the band’s influences come from a variety of different places.
Early said one band member is first generation Cuban-American, so the band has some Latin songs from his influence. O’Rorke said the band grew up in the ’90s, so there’s also a heavy Sublime and Red Hot Chili Peppers influence.
“We kind of try to bring it all together and whatever feels good is what we try to put out there,” O’Rorke said.
The band brought all of that to its 3 p.m. set.
“Obviously the production was great, we got to play on the main stage this year so that was fantastic,” Early said.
He said the band enjoys the festival experience for not only performing, but also for crossing paths with bands they don’t normally get to see. The band went to the shows yesterday and planned to hang out for the rest of the weekend, visiting sets and enjoying the music.
“[It’s] great to kind of see what everybody else is doing across the country and across the world,” Early said.