The April Fools began as a studio project for singer/songwriter Brian Drake, who intended to record a batch of his songs with help from a wide network of players to flesh out the tunes. Guitar, bass, and drums would be augmented by horn players, strings, woodwinds, keyboards, vocalists, and more depending on the specific song. The songs themselves spanned a broad spectrum—rock to straight-up country to alt-country/Americana to blue-eyed soul to Brit-pop to folk to 70’s AM radio and more.
The four original members got together for their first jam on September 15, 2013. Easily finding a cohesive thread with which to bring together those diverse genres, they quickly began recording sessions for what would become their debut album. Released in April 2015, the self-titled The April Fools quickly garnered airplay on more than 100 radio stations across the U.S.

Fast-forward to December 2017. After the release their of their second album Colorwheel, on Blackberry Way Records original guitarist Clay Williams left the band and the remaining members carried on quickly with the addition of Minneapolis veteran Terri Owens (Tete Noires, The Flamin’ Oh’s, and others) and Dallas transplant Brad McLemore (Sara Hickman). Within a year the new line-up recorded and released another full-length LP “Third” again on Blackberry Way Records. This one gave notice of a band evolving in leaps and bounds – again garnering airplay nationally and internationally.

And now, today.

As the band were getting ready to begin recording their fourth studio album the world was becoming aware of a new term, COVID-19. They couldn’t know that this would soon take over our lives and lock us all down. As this reality set in, original bassist Scott Hreha made the decision to leave the band. The remaining members, with the sad reality that they wouldn’t be playing any shows for who knows how long, decided to forge ahead with making a new record. The plan was to bring in a variety of bassists they knew and loved and hear their interpretations of the new songs being worked on up to that point. Recording with great caution, often one band member alone with audio engineer Mike Owens, everyone knew this was going to be a slow process.

Full steam ahead – Brad reached out to his friends in the Old 97s and brought bassist Murry Hammond on board for a remote session to add his distinct style to the song “Lose Your Mind”. They also brought in bassists Paul McFarland (Lolo’s Ghost, Run Westy Run) and Nick Salisbury (Ryan Bingham, Brian Fallon, and many Twin Cities bands) to add their unique styles to the songs. With touring all but shut down The April Fools invited Salisbury to come on board as a full time member. He fit like a glove and proceeded to finish out the the record with his stellar playing. Many months later, and many small recording sessions later, The April Fools are excited to release this album into the new world on 11/26/2021.

The Aster show will be a fun warm-up – some songs have never been played together live as a group and some that were written pre-pandemic have now taken on entirely new meanings.

The April Fools Official Website

Music 9-11pm

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$12 cover charge will be added to your tab.