About Blue Shade

First of all, Blue Shade is a Pop-Rock band influenced by the Blues one cannot compare to any other bands. Why? Because they don’t fall into kitschy Blues or Rock rhythms and always find some strange ways to pep up their songs, be it with cool lyrics, instant action on scene by the sax player or weird guitar solos for instance. But one cannot only reduce Blue Shade to this!
Originally they come from a small country named Luxembourg, right in the heart of Europe.
These 5 guys, not older than 18 years at the time, had one big thing in common: Rock n Roll!
Though every member plays different styles on his respective instrument, they found a common soil and it ended up in forming Blue Shade. Indeed, their music doesn’t sound typically Blues-Rock at all. Ken (vocals, rhythm and solo guitars) does all that psychedelic-Hendrix-stuff on the guitar, Patrick (saxophones) plays a very jazzy style close to Coltrane, bass player Sandro masters all the funky sounds on his instrument, Chris (drums) definitely takes the hard-rock part over and, last but not least, Jay (vocals, keyboards, Hammond organ, rhythm guitar) knows how to impress chicks with the beautiful sounds streaming through his fingers. All these different styles melt into a beautiful sounding music that somehow never annoys.
All of them play in other bands too: Chris plays with the London-based band “Example” (support act for “The Streets” and signed at “The Beats” label), Jay plays with a jazz band named “Celia Tranchand 4tet”, Patrick plays with some famous jazz orchestras in The Netherlands and as session player in the Benelux area. Finally, Sandro and Ken play together with a Brussels-based Rock n Roll band named “The unusual situation”.

Their first album “Director’s Cut”, released in March 2006, is a perfect snapshot of the Blue Shade mentality. It is a concept CD (to make it fast: one story told through another story) and was recorded live at the studio. Blue Shade definitely are a live band, so they decided to get that vibe on the record too. The first song “The Train” shows the more rocking blues side of the band, passing over to the quite funky “No woman no style”. “Hot wheels” is a very rocking piece of music on one side, “Mona Lisa” showing the bands latin-jazz-blues skills on the other side. “Groaning Blues” is a typical 12-bar Blues song but telling a quite familiar story to lots of people… The bluesiest part on the record is without doubt the wonderful slow-blues song “Red Lights”. It is followed by the poppy part “Secret Island”, a song where every dream can be fulfilled if one listens closely to the lyrics… The last song “The keys” is a very boogie-woogie like tune with a cool piano intro, jazzy saxophone riffs and a hilarious story to tell!

More recently, in spring 2007, Blue Shade have recorded a 4-song Demo CD that gives a good reflection of the bands musical abilities and diversity. It kicks off with the modern rocking tune “Tell me why”. Indeed, this song turns around a girl that tries “to make me bad” but “I won’t cry”, a story well known to most of us. The second song is named “Take me there”. It resembles quite a lot to bands the famous guitar player Slash has been playing with but this coincidence is not necessarily unwanted… Track number three is “On my own”, a song one cannot put in a style just like that. In fact it is a waltz, but shadowed by distorted guitars, heavy bass and rather poppy lyrics. You’ll be astonished how a waltz can be changed like that! Last, but not least, the forth track is “Tomorrow”. This song clearly distinguishes itself from the other tunes. As a matter of fact, it is a pop song that hides some classic pop clichés, but it doesn’t feel like that.
All in all, the Demo CD demonstrates the variety of the band and the intention to play different styles and to melt them together. Blue Shade is a mix of talents all coming from different musical directions and one can feel this by listening to the Demo CD.

Band Members