Touring as a two-piece band has obvious benefits — low expenses, less gear, an easier to park vehicle — but many other aspects are more of a challenge. Fewer band members means fewer hands to help with things like songwriting, arrangements, artwork, ordering merch, answering emails ... paying for stuff.
For The Blues Stones' Tarek Jafar and Justin Tessier, however, it's all they've known, and as far as they can tell, what they have works great.
"It is definitely easier," Jafar tells Q104.3's Out of the Box with Jonathan Clarke. "There's a few things that you might miss out on by not having a couple other players on stage, or to write with, for sure. But as far as the way we write our music, it works for our structure and it works live too. As long as our live show is good, then we're happy. I feel like that's the most important part."
While the two-man band format can be restrictive, Jafar says he and Tessier thrive within those limits, particularly when it comes to translating their studio recordings to the stage.
"Justin put this well a while ago: 'We like to play covers of our own songs on stage,'" Jafar adds. "So you listen to the album and you get a real feel for the songs the way we wanted them to be written and the way we wanted them to sound. Then you come to the live show, you hear those songs and your recognize them, but you get something extra, something a little bit different."
Check out the full Out of the Box interview, plus The Blue Stones' live performance of the song "Be My Fire" above!
The Blue Stones are on tour now. Get all their tour dates here.
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Check out the official lyric video for The Blue Stones' "Black Holes (Solid Ground)":