IN WEEKLY's BEST OF THE COAST- BEST LOCAL BAND

Chainsaw Kelly is an Americana band residing in Birmingham, Alabama. While currently an acoustic duo, the band has often performed with friends, filling out their delta blues-influenced sound with drums, bass, fiddle, and more. At the core of Chainsaw Kelly is Brandon Smith and Michael Daw, both singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalists with a vision for each individual song, rather than a big-picture sound. While most songs start out as a simple folk song, once in the studio the track is given the attention it needs to become something of its own. Tracks like Pine Cone Blues and Georgia Blues stay very true to their original sound, but filled out with percussion, bass, mandolin, and other complimentary instruments. Other tracks, such as Ghost-Tooned Stomp and World Surfer snowball into something else completely, creating a certain amount of almost-psychadelic weirdness that is evident in all of their recordings.

The band was originally formed a few years back, when Brandon Smith and Michael Daw, who were living in two different cities at the time, decided to rendezvous in their hometown of Pensacola, Florida for a much-needed vacation/recording session. Since this session, they have lived in Atlanta, Pensacola, and their current home, Birmingham, Alabama. Chainsaw Kelly is part of the ever-growing Raw Panda Records, and records the majority of their music with Sean Peterson at Raw Panda Studios.