When your first hear the Texas band Somebody's Darling perform, you can't help but stop and listen. From the bands creative use of lyrics, and instruments to the raspy sexy voice of lead singer Amber Farris, just one song will get you hooked. If you spend time with them, you'll want to invite them over for dinner, not to play, but to eat, drink and just shoot the breeze.
"Like Dallas, kinda being a hip, cool town, we got thrown into that and so even though we were writing rock 'n' roll music, we had a country base," said Farris. "So we got thrown into the country world of it all, but had the hip Dallas influence behind us. And so it's kinda kept us different from other bands."
The four piece country-rock band considers Dallas home-base. In fact they are up for two very big Dallas Observer Awards, something they are very proud of.
"We just got nominated for the Dallas Observer awards and we got 'Best Country Act,'" said Farris. "And I surprisingly got nominated for 'Best Female Vocalist.' So that is really cool. We are proud of that and is something we are really excited about."
Those awards will be held at the Granada Theater on July 20, and if you can't make it then, they come back to play on Aug. 28.
On any given night you may find the band at their favorite hangout, The Amsterdam Bar, at Exchange Place in Dallas Fair Park. And the bar is right around the corner from their guitar guru we'll call Jimmy. They started playing together in 2007 and haven't slowed down since.
"Nothing makes us happier than playing four, five, six shows in-a-row," said Nate Wedan, percussion. "And we'll be heading back home, and yeah it's nice to come home but, we all want to go out and do more shows. That's just who we are what we do."
"We travel in a 92 Dodge van that we bought for 400 bucks in Kansas. The A/C barely works, but we put in bunk beds and have a place to sleep," said Wedan. "So far the road has been good. Every venue we have played at accepted us pretty well."
And they don't plan on leaving that van behind. Somebody's Darling is gearing up for a multi-month tour around much of the country.
Farris, David Ponder (Lead Guitar), Wedan and Michael Talley (Bass) can't wait to hit the highway. And while they love playing at home.
"It's always good to play at home cuz it's your home crowd," said Wedan. "They've grown up with you. It's a bigger crowd but sometimes we will be on the road; we played Wichita, Kansas not too long ago and it was a big crowd and surprisingly they really took to us."
There is something about playing on the road that keeps them going back for more.
"What's cool with us too is, we go into a place and I think we get judged just a little bit before we go in there. They are like, 'Huh female vocalist, you know what are these guys gonna do?'" said Farris. "And by the end of the night we are at the bar drinking with everybody there."
