The Gene Butler Band releases their seventh studio album, Born Inside A Hard Rock

“Music With Teeth, Lyrics That Bite”

Los Angeles, CA – The Gene Butler Band releases their seventh studio album, Born Inside A Hard Rock. Butler’s roots country songwriting has been called ‘Concrete Americana’ with listeners at every corner of the globe from Australia to Zimbabwe, Canada to Japan and all across America. The new album’s “in your face country charm” features Butler’s original, thoughtful lyrics and memorable melodies.

The band has played every famous, near famous, and completely unknown venue in and around Southern California.  They’ve shared the stage with such amazing talents as Lucinda Williams, Buddy Miller, Gurf Morlix, The Desert Rose Band, Herb Pedersen and John Jorgenson, Dwight Yoakum, Danny Dugmore, Greg Leisz and the unique fiddling’s of the great fiddle player, Brantley Kearns, plus, many more.

Born Inside A Hard Rock is produced by The Red Door Jukebox & Mike Matters Media. It was recorded at Clear Lake Studios in Burbank by Engineer Eric Miles. It features Gene Butler (vocals/guitar/harmonica) with Bill Angarola (guitar/background vocals), Alan “Shotgun” Weissman (drums), Matt McFadden (bass), Julie Janney (background vocals), Nathalie Blossom (background vocals) and Gregory Gast (background vocals).

Growing up a native of Macon, Georgia in the 60’s, Gene was surrounded by the music of Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Little Richard and the inspiring gospel music that would emanate out of the black churches on a Sunday Morning. At a young age Gene knew that music was as close to heaven as the human soul could get. Little wonder that music was the path his life would take. His hundred-plus original songs lean towards Americana, but with plenty of country, blues and rock mixed in.

Butler's songs have been placed in both film and television. Among them are; The Gilmore Girls, Holyman Undercover, Armadillo, The Little Acorn, Wrong Way, New York, Sirens and Malibu Dan; the Family Man.

Media Contact: Anita Lee a.lee@anitaleepublicity.com OR genebulterband@aol.com

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    Gene Butler - Concrete Country review

I love the way this album starts with "Momma Wish I'd Listened to You." You know the singer is in trouble when he starts the proceedings locked up in a jail cell with black-eyed peas staring him in the face. So it goes when you don't listen to what momma said.

Gene Butler sings some Concrete Country songs like the intro track then turns on that “in your face country charm” on "Cold, Cold, Cold Woman." Music and songs like this are next-door neighbors to the blues, it is an undeniable fact that country is one of the many styles of music that developed a life all its own from the genre. I find myself grinning from ear to ear when I hear songs like that for some reason. I am always able to find the humor in an otherwise potentially painful situation. Guess it's your own choice to look at the lighter side of life this way, I have a feeling the singer sure is. Some fine musicians back Butler on every track on this album, besides his harmonica, guitar, and vocals, he gets some stellar support from some foot stompin' fiddle players like Doug Atwell and Brantley Kearns. Billy Da Mota and Gurf Morlix (also plays the bass and provides vocals) adds some great guitar licks, and we cannot discount the importance of the pedal steel in a country song- Danny Dugmore provides that and does a fine job. Mike Bannister and Phil Mantano beat the skins to provide the bottom end for everyone and Amy Penny and Lucinda Williams (recognize that name?) add some vocal parts. I thought it was important to mention everyone that contributed to this effort and certainly, without all of their support, Butler would not have pulled this off in such a big way. I am not a big country fan but sometimes there is enough rock and a taste of the blues to bring out the latent cowboy in me.

RadioIndy.com staff – MusicCityTXGal

Country Music for people who don't like country music.

Genre: Country: Country Rock

Love it! "Concrete Country" is a walk down that good ole' country road.

The Gene Butler Band’s “Concrete Country” is the roots of great country music. It is essential for those collectors of early CW icons such as Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. With tremendous musicianship similar to that found in bluegrass music, this band brings on the southern flavor with their contemporary country ala Americana/Rockabilly sound. Recommended tracks off the album are its opener “Momma Wish I’d Listened To You” because with this one you get a walk down country road. Other top picks are “Cold, Cold, Cold Woman” and “God’s Fallen Star” featuring Lucinda Williams on background vocals for a great Texas two-steppin’ beat. The Gene Butler Band’s “Concrete Country” IS the music I grew up listening to in Texas and knowing they are working on their second release makes me rarin’ to go for more! I highly recommend this album to those who appreciate great country roots music.

Excellent Americana/country CD. Pick up a copy today

Rambles.net - Review by Jerome Clark

The Gene Butler Band, which works out of Los Angeles, features a harder strain of country. Butler, who writes and sings all of the songs, grew up in Georgia but moved to Seattle in his mid-teens. The sound he creates is a synthesis of Southern and West Coast country, perhaps informed by folk music (the opening cut, "Momma, Wish I'd Listened to You," is all quotes and paraphrases from traditional songs). Butler possesses a craggy, soulful voice that sounds like his face looks: pure blue-collar. Not much soft is to be found in Concrete Country (a title with at least two levels of meaning), and it matters not that the man responsible, no hillbilly off-stage, is an actor and independent-film director.

Among the musicians are ubiquitous alt-country hipsters Lucinda Williams and Gurf Morlix, but Butler's approach is hardly alternative, or at least it wouldn't be if today's music industry weren't so relentlessly antagonistic to intelligence, taste and emotional authenticity. Where pop would be inserted into a more mainstream (i.e., modern Nashville) act's muse (surely too highfalutin a word), Butler turns to rockabilly; note, for example, the modified Bo Diddley beat in "Love's the Real Thing," which deserves less saccharine lyrics. Still, on the whole the only sweet to be heard in this sound is bittersweet. And the lovely, chilly "In This Lonesome City" is a memorable addition to the small and eminently worthy sub-genre of country-noir.