Members of Split Lip Rayfield, Grain and Demise to bring rock project to Emporia

Courtesy of Eric Mardis

The trio of Eric Mardis, Ryan Johnson and Calvin Bennett at one of their early performances as Snake Bite. The band will be performing with The Dewayn Brothers on Friday.

Individually Eric Mardis, Calvin Bennett and Ryan Johnson are all accomplished musicians but when the three come together, it is something special. Friday the trio are bringing their hard rock project Snake Bite to Emporia.

“I’d say that Eric, Ryan and I have a ‘natural’ chemistry together that we use as a platform to go with whatever we're trying to do on any given night,” Bennett said.

You might know Mardis, Snake Bite’s guitar player and vocalist, from his regular gig in Split Lip Rayfield, the influential Kansas alt-bluegrass band.

“SLR comes first,” Mardis said. “The other stuff keeps me sane. I really don’t know what kind of music I like playing most, so I try to play it all.”

For Snake Bite, Mardis trades his banjo for an electric guitar, but maintains the same energy and skill that he brings to all of his projects.

“Snake Bite is tongue-in-cheek rock bombast fun,” Mardis said. “Split Lip Rayfield is definitely fun too, but I don’t feel good about getting hammered and falling around at SLR shows anymore. With Snake Bite though, we can just have a great night and not worry about professional repercussions. We are just dirty rockers.”

“I guess Snake Bite is our most ‘straight ahead’ rock band,” Bennett said. “Even though we still play some jazz, blues, country, bluegrass and experimental things in as well as tons of our ‘rock’ songs.”

In addition to Snake Bite, Mardis, Bennett and Johnson have also performed together in Overland Express, Floyd the Barber, Lou’s Revenge, Kirk Rundstrom Band and The Eric Mardis Trio.

“We have been at it so long that we have formed telepathic bonds,” Mardis said.

Bennett, Snake Bite’s bass player, also has an impressive musical resume and is very busy living in Brooklyn, New York, but he always makes time for his friends back in Kansas.

“In New York, I play in two orchestras and have about four different rock/bluegrass/jazz projects going on,” Bennett said. “I come back to Kansas about five times a year and we do mini-tours with either Snake Bite, Bennett Brothers and Ryan Johnson, Floyd the Barber or Satan’s Jeweled Crown. So it's always planned out in advance.”

The band has been together for nearly ten years but have known each other for much longer.

“We met when Calvin's brother Cody and I were on the same little league baseball team, but we didn't start hanging out and playing music until high school jazz band,” Mardis said. “We had a killer jazz band at our school so that was fun, but we also found that we had a shared admiration for Pink Floyd, Metallica and S.O.D. So we began to play rock music and some jazzy stuff outside of school as well. Ryan also went to our high school, it seems everyone did, but we didn’t really start playing together until college at K.U.”

After growing up together, attending Shawnee Mission West High School together in Overland Park and eventually attending the same college, the trio began to play together on a regular basis.

“We started our first band together with drummer Mark Tarlton called Floyd The Barber,” Bennett said. “We played a few gigs around Kansas City, and a couple gigs with our friend pianist and vocalist Joshua Upshaw and I think I jammed a couple times with his band Liquid Chicken a couple of times.”

Snake Bite evolved out of the groups desire to play some heavier material.

“Snake Bite started around 1997 or 1998 as a side project for us to do some newer material and rock out a little more,” Bennett said. “This band's the perfect vehicle.”

“Snake Bite was meant to be the rock outlet for us,” Mardis said. “We've played so much jazz and bluegrass over the last 20 years that I really wanted a heavy metal outlet. Now Snake Bite usually plays a little of everything; country stuff, swing, and balls out ultra-guitar metal.”

In the end, the three simply enjoy making music together and it doesn’t really matter what genre there are playing.

“My favorite music just makes me smile even if its about decapitations or whatever,” Mardis said. “Its hard to explain that good feeling, but hopefully our stuff is fun and makes for a good party.”

Snake Bite and The Dewayn Brothers will be performing at Beer:30 on August 29th at 10 p.m.