The Aristocats

Yellow Scene: When did the band form, and what was the mission?

Cherri Pruitt: We started in late 2014. A couple of the folks in the band are professional musicians, and our lead singer has an amazing voice and presence. Really, it was just wanting to do more performance. My husband Rick and a bunch of us all met through the Cannon Mine Coffee Shop in Lafayette. It;s a very local music venue – there’s a lot of open mics there. We had met over the years, and it just seemed to fall together. Whenever we played together, we had a really good time. Our current drummer joined us almost a year ago. We’re a pretty new band. We just wanted to increase the amount of music we were making together, and have fun doing it.

YS: Describe the sound…

CP: We just do covers right now. We’re working on originals, but how we’ve been describing ourselves is rhythm & blue, funk and rock. We have some songs that were originally written back in the 1950s by Kansas Joe McCoy. We also do some really current songs, by Amy Winehouse and Gnarls Barkley. The criteria we use is that we all have to love the song. We have about 30 songs on the wish list.

YS: What do you think of the East County music scene?

CP: I feel really excited. I feel like the breweries are really driving it. It feels like they come with a respect for music. It’s still not an area where you can make a lot of money as a musician, but it does feel like more and more are paying musicians closer to what they’re worth and supporting the tip jar. People enjoy helping each other make good music. It’s really growing.

YS: What can we expect from the Nissi’s set?

CP: We’re really excited. We have a couple of new songs that we’re adding. We’re doing a Devo-like version of “Tainted Love.” We pair “Red Red Wine” with Sublime’s “Bad Fish.” That’s non-traditional and people have really expressed love for. People can expect the opportunity to dance a lot.

YS: When this show’s over, what’s next?

CP: We’re getting some regular gigs at places like Powder Keg Brewery. We’re at the Cannon Mine the first Saturday of every month. We’ve been playing at Por Wine House, but that’s an outdoor venue so we’ll be taking a break. We would love people to contact us. We’re a very fun band. We hope to play some private parties over the holidays. We’ll also be playing Front Range Brewery. We’d love to keep playing at Nissi’s. It’s a wonderful venue.