Jackson Free Press

When musicians Sam Craft and Alexis Marceaux began forming their patented "indie-rock Louisianais" as Sweet Crude, they didn't intend to limit themselves. Over the band's two-year tenure, that aversion to limitations has also applied to the number of bandmates. Now, with a total of seven sitting members, Sweet Crude has reached a level of contentment, at least for now.

"When we made it to seven people, we kind of realized that we had the sound that we wanted, so we cut it off there," Craft says. "We hope to one day bring an orchestra of people on stage. We feel that our sound lends itself to multiplicity and almost to redundancy."

Having only performed live for a short time—their first time was in March 2013 at One Eyed Jack's in New Orleans' French Quarter—Sweet Crude has already received one sure sign of success with its song "Parlez-Nous a Boire," which FX's "American Horror Story" featured in two episodes. Since the third season was set in New Orleans, the show's producers wanted to create a more localized soundtrack, something that emphasized southern Louisiana tradition, yet felt unmistakably modern. Sweet Crude certainly fits that bill.

"They wanted what we have, which is a modern take on what is generally considered a museum-piece music," Craft says, adding that the band's use of Louisiana-French dialect ages it in some listeners' minds. In the past, the use of Louisiana-French, or "Cajun-French," in music meant the inclusion of washboards and accordions, rarely incorporating contemporary instruments.

"We're all about showing that the language is not limited to a certain sound," Craft says.

It's a good thing, too, because Sweet Crude's style of music differs greatly from its forebears. Though many of the band members, whose ages range from 23 to 28, have specialized instruments—Sam Craft plays violin; Skyler Stroup and Jack Craft play keys; Stephen MacDonald plays bass; Marion Tortorich, Jonathan Arceneaux and Alexis Marceaux play percussion—every musician also sings and plays a percussive instrument.

"We knew we wanted to create a sense of community, both amongst the band and between the band and the audience," Craft says. He and Marceaux felt that the combination of singing and percussion en masse offered a mutual experience during performances, one that felt both natural and intuitive.

Front and center, Craft and Marceaux each use a floor tom and share a mounted tambourine, but Marceaux also uses a, well, something. "Alexis plays an interesting contraption that we really don't know what it's called, but it's a pitched percussion instrument," Craft says. "It's almost like five different cowbells, and each has a different sound and is mounted on one apparatus."

The band also prides itself in splitting the role of lead vocals, recalling the '90s boy-band era, in which each member would have an opportunity to lead within a given song. This shared sense of leadership also means a shared responsibility among the band members.

"We arrange by committee," Craft says. "Sometimes it's slow ... but we all know how valuable it is." Each musician in Sweet Crude has some level of musical education as well, giving equal input into the formation of songs. This allows for informed percussion arrangement and multi-tiered harmonies.

Even though Sweet Crude actively crafts new music for fans, Craft says that the band is in no rush to release a full-length record. He believes that the group's most recent EP, "Super Vilaine," which was released in December of 2013, is new to many listeners. The important thing to Sweet Crude is producing work that is deserving of the traditions upon which it's based.

"It's up to us to create something that has posterity and that's viable and not just a reference to the past, not just a relic," Craft says. "A lot of musicians have done an amazing job of preserving the beautiful tradition of Louisiana music. But we're in a business of creating new tradition or ... branching off from it. That's our whole goal."

Sweet Crude will perform at Martin's Restaurant and Bar (214 S. State St.) at 10 p.m. July 5. Visit the band on Facebook for more information.

Briana Robinson conducted the original interview with Sweet Crude.