The Horny Toads

Don't Let the Cowboy Hats Fool You
Horny Toads offer club rock alternative

By Jane Wilson
Phoenix Correspondent November 10, 2006

TULSA - What happens when you get sick of the sleaze in the music business? Well, if you're Tulsa's Horny Toads, you take a break and then you form a band to make great music that you want to play and people want to hear.

"We don't try to ignore the fact that we're from Oklahoma," said Keith Hough, the band's lead guitar player, "which a lot of band try to do. We decided to embrace the whole Southern Okie thing. It's rock and roll with a little twang."

True, you can hear the Telecaster twang in the rock songs, but don't for a minute think The Horny Toads are a country band -- or anything approaching it. They play straightforward rock and roll, and audiences are starting to respond.

"We're fixing to bust out in Tulsa," Hough said. "Next year is going to be big for us."

The band's lead singer, Jeff James, said that commitment to great music combined with a good selection of songs makes the band more popular.

"I think what people like about the Toads is we try to give something for everyone," he said. "We play good rock and put on a show for the ones who like to watch, but we lay down plenty of groove for the dancers, too."

Not everyone who likes to dance is crazy about hip-hop, the band is convinced, so they need danceable music that isn't necessarily in that genre.

The band plays everything from Aerosmith to ZZ Top to Lenny Kravitz and Jimmy Eats World, but they concentrate on the groove no matter what they're playing.

"We're trying to offer an alternative to hip-hop," Hough said. "We offer a show for people who like to watch a rock show. We're a high-energy band, but we also try to make sure everyone in the club can have a good time."

That self-determination came hard for the band. Both members said they had been in previous bands where they hadn't had the decision-making ability to mold the bands to what they wanted.

So far, word-of-mouth has been the band's greatest advertiser. Some friends of the band came to see a show, then they told their friends and so on. Now, the band has a crowd of regular fans that show up whereever they play.

"We get a lot of couples in their late 20s to 40s who still like to get out and kick it a little bit on the weekends instead of watching TV," Hough said. "That's our core following."

That should be not so surprising for a band that counts Led Zeppelin and Kiss among its chief influences. Well, that and the fact that it's kind of hard to forget a name like Horny Toads.

"I guarantee that anyone who comes to see us remembers the name," Hough said. "Nobody forgets a name like the Horny Toads."

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