Gonzales Weekly Citizen - Article Link

By Darian Graivshark

Posted Jan 22, 2019 at 9:00 AM   

“I decided to create this band to keep the history of Pink Floyd alive, because there really isn’t anything like it. Their music and experience was so unique.”  What’s the difference between a cover band and a tribute band?  A cover band will sing different songs from different bands, while a tribute band will focus on songs from one band and focus on perfecting it.  Bricks In The Wall is a Pink Floyd tribute band that played at The Varsity in Baton Rouge on January 19. On January 18, they played in New Orleans with a sold out show at the House of Blues. They are also the longest performing Pink Floyd tribute act in the United States.  The band re-creates what a Pink Floyd live concert would have been like. Bricks In The Wall uses light effects, a laser light show, state-of-the-art video, and a gigantic circular video screen behind them as they play.  Band members include backup singers Tiffany Belle, Jenny Hepworth, and Rachel Beene; Eddie Holyfield, bass guitar and vocals; Vincent Guerin, keyboard and vocals; Travis Satterfield, acoustic and electric guitar, lap steel, and vocals; Keith Williams, saxophone and vocals; Gunter Heydman, guitar and vocals; and Justin Krause, drums.  “I founded Bricks In The Wall back in the late 1990′s,” Satterfield said. “I really loved Pink Floyd. I basically taught myself how to play guitar to play some of their songs. I decided to create this band to keep the history of Pink Floyd alive, because there really isn’t anything like it. Their music and experience was so unique.”  Bricks In The Wall have collectively worked together towards recreating the authenticity of a Pink Floyd concert by collecting vintage instruments to use during shows. This helps recreate the sights and sounds of what people would have experienced when Pink Floyd was still playing. Satterfield’s prized possession is a vintage Yamaha RA 200 rotating speaker cabinet.  “None of us really knew any of the others when we first joined,” Hepworth said. “We kind of found out about it through online posts, like Craigslist. We’re all really just a big family now. We joke around with each other and talk to one another like family.”  “My favorite part about the shows is when I see little kids, maybe twelve-year-olds, that are enjoying the music,” Guerin said. “It’s rewarding to be able to give them an experience they might not have had otherwise without our band.”   “This is a great way to keep the history of Pink Floyd alive,” Belle said. “Recreating the sounds and visuals really gives new listeners, as well as the seasoned listeners, and idea of what it was like during that time.”  Typically, the band only travels to places that are drive-able. Sometimes they will go a little north of Oklahoma, perform in Texas, and go down towards Florida. Traveling is expensive, and all of the band members work a regular nine to five job during the weekdays. Bricks In The Wall is something they do for fun and during the weekend usually.  “Everything they make from the shows that they play goes right back into the band. Whether for traveling, visuals, equipment--they don’t really try to profit off of it, but try to bring something fun to people while having fun doing it,” Ryan Vaughn, light designer and director for Bricks In The Wall, said.

Follow Darian on Twitter @dariangshark

Dallas Observer - Article Link

By Sarah Hepola

While The Who's Tommy has landed firmly in the jazz hands of community theaters across the country, that other infamous concept-album-cum-stoner-film, Pink Floyd--The Wall, doesn't get much stage time. That's not surprising, really. The 1982 Roger Waters/Alan Parker film is essentially a visual riff, the story of a spoiled rock star intercut with blasts of carnage and freaky-erotic cartoons. Not many theater companies mount such a glorious mess.  Until now. This Saturday and Sunday, Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth presents a stage version of The Wall, starring actors from the Box Theater along with Bricks in the Wall, a Pink Floyd cover band.

"Have you ever heard Bricks in the Wall?" asks Wesley Hathaway, who runs the Ridglea with her husband, Richard Van Zandt. "Oh, they're amazing. If you close your eyes, you'd swear it was Floyd." She should know. For years, she and Van Zandt ran a Pink Floyd laser show, and they still book Floyd tributes at the Ridglea. None, however, as wildly ambitious as this one.  "This isn't gonna be some thrown-together community theater affair," says Travis Satterfield, lead singer and guitarist for Bricks in the Wall. "It's something that [Roger] Waters would have done back then if he could have." Pink Floyd did perform The Wall in the early '80s, but the production proved too unwieldy. The shows have become one of those wish-you-were-there experiences Floyd fans blog about, but few have the chutzpah to actually stage it themselves. Michael Johnson directs the show, in which actors will portray the action as the band plays, sometimes behind an actual brick wall. (Well, it's made of cardboard boxes. Shh, don't tell.) Since The Wall contains such inexplicable jaw-droppers as a cartoon character that speaks out of his own asshole, we should mention that the show will use video in parts, but Satterfield raves about what the theater company has actually created for the production. One of the costumes is a 20-foot worm. It fits three people.  Anxious to get a taste of this rather unprecedented show, I visited a Bricks in the Wall rehearsal a few weeks ago. Although the band works hard to mimic the stirring space-rock of its idols, it makes no such attempt to look the part. The half-dozen middle-aged guys loafed around the stage wearing casual khakis and baseball caps, as their wives and children looked on from couches in the corner. The kids are some of the two dozen children acting the production as schoolkids and soldiers. When I ask about some teen volunteers from the Weatherford High Drama Department, one woman tells me, "Oh, yes. They're fascists."  The afternoon run-through was a cozy family affair, with kids running around, filching Coke money from their mothers' purses, flopping on the couch, bored.  "Do you like this music?" I asked one teen, tapping his fingers in time.  "Oh, yeah," the kid responded immediately. "Of course."  With her young daughter curled up at her side, the woman beside me explained her children's affection for The Wall. "I used to listen to Pink Floyd when I was pregnant," she says. "That and the mellow parts of Yes."  Huh. And here I've spent a good decade presuming you had to be stoned to love The Wall.  "Being stoned has nothing to do with it," Satterfield tells me later.   Says Hathaway: "My opinion is that it was just an amazing film. It was a social commentary on what was wrong with education, on accepting other people."  Sure. But isn't it better when you're stoned?  "I have never smoked marijuana in my entire life," she says. "And I love The Wall."

The Wall will be performed at Ridglea Theater on May 15 at 9 p.m. and on May 16 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15.

My Scene TV - Article Link

By Kent B. MSTv

The BRLA concert staple, The Varsity Theater, was treated to something special last night as the Pink Floyd tribute band, Bricks In the Wall, rocked the house to its mortar roots.  The nine piece group, formed in 1998, pays tribute and a disciplined homage to one of the most influential Brit pop-culture bands of the last five decades, Pink Floyd.  And to their credit, BITW brings a highly detailed attention to their performances; their efforts to reproduce concert experiences that fans, young and old, could once only experience with the original Pink Floyd, shine through spectacularly.  Spectators can see the care and quality being placed into a BITW concert.  But, few would guess that this polished band simply grew out of the mind of a 10 year old's love a a simple vinyl record.  BITW creator and band leader, Travis Satterfield got a vinyl 45 copy of Pink Floyd’s single, “Another Brick in the Wall,” for Christmas in 1979.  He was only 10 years old and the song’s lyrics, "Hey, teacher! Leave those kids alone,"  struck an instant chord with him."I guess that was rebellion,” Satterfield said from Dallas.  From that tune, Satterfield moved on to The Wall album and all of the Floyd albums that preceded it.  “I was hooked,” he said. “I picked up the guitar so I could play Pink Floyd.” As he got older, Satterfield appreciated the band’s musical complexity and sociopolitical lyrics.  And from those original bytes of inspiration, Satterfield grew from fan to founder of the Pink Floyd tribute band, Bricks in the Wall.  Feeling confident in his guitar playing following years of practice, Satterfield took out a classified ad in the Dallas Observer for singers and musicians interested in forming his Pink Floyd tribute band.  “I started getting answers and, before too long, we had a band,” he said. “After six months of practice we were out playing gigs. It really grew to what I always envisioned it to be, a full-on Pink Floyd experience with lasers and video screens, lights and authentic equipment and the giant pig that we’ll bring out on occasion.”  Following its formation in 1998, demand for Bricks in the Wall grew. The group later reduced its schedule to about 12 shows a years, including its exclusive Dallas and Houston area performances at those cities’ House of Blues locations.  The nine-member Bricks in the Wall is spending most of this year marking the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s classic 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon.  The group’s Dark Side of the Moon show features original Pink Floyd video synced to the performance as well as synced lights and lasers.   With a highly enjoyable concert last night in Baton Rouge, plus a few more tours left in Louisiana and Texas, BITW can be an experience to relish and behold - whether you know nothing or are a diehard fan of the music of Pink Floyd.  Not many bands can bring stadium-sized concert experiences to smaller venues; and do so effectively.   But luckily for us, Bricks In the Wall, like their source of inspiration, looks to buck and defy most stereotypes of success geared for their audiences. 

Eagle 106.3 Texarkana's Classic Rock Station - Article Link

By Lisa Lindsey

Bricks In The Wall, the longest performing Pink Floyd Tribute act in the U.S., is coming to Little Rock this Friday night August 17, to celebrate their 20th anniversary.   The show will be at The Rev Room located at 300 President Clinton Avenue in the River Market District in Little Rock. Doors will open at 7:30PM and the show starts at 9PM.  According to a press release, Bricks In The Wall is a 9-piece tribute to Pink Floyd that re-creates the live Pink Floyd concert experience with stunning accuracy. Their shows are complete with a gigantic circular video screen, state-of-the-art video and light effects, and a must-see laser lights show. It’s an experience of sight and sound that carries the spacey, wonderful torch with true arrangements and genuine improv.

“The Bricks In The Wall show has truly become a can’t miss note-for-note and stunning visual recreation of a Pink Floyd concert,” band founder, Travis Satterfield, said. “We perform all the classic Pink Floyd hits, plus more. This show is as close as fans can get to experiencing a Pink Floyd show live.”

The band, based in Dallas, has been “Shining On” for 20 years and is regarded as the pinnacle U.S. Pink Floyd tribute.  Tickets are $20+ surcharge pricing (purchase in advance online or by calling the Rev Room at (501) 823-0090; or can be purchased at the door); standing room tickets only