Grand Cannon

2013-2016

There’s a million ways to play the Blues. GRAND CANNON have found one more. Their line-up is as unusual as their background.

Pfuri Baldenweg, rooted in the tradition of Woody Guthrie as well as Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, is a wizard on the blues-harp. Kniri Knaus, a life-long traditional jazzer, is a devil on the trombone. Chicago-born Zachary Prather honed his gloriously rich blues voice and his guitar style in the bands of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Willie Dixon, Mick Jagger and Etta James.

Flashback to the 70s: There was once a band called Pfuri, Gorps & Kniri. They combined a DIY ethos with an anti-consumerist message and a hugely infectious sense of fun.

“We went through junk yards looking for things that sounded great and then stuffed our van with all sorts of trash. Back home in our rehearsal room we’d experiment with the sound of these items for days,” says Pfuri.

Kniri adds: “It was also a statement towards the growing consumer society. People were surprised how we re-used the things they had thrown away and how we put them in a musical context.”

The ‘recycling’ music pioneers were a much-loved fixture at festivals across Europe and on popular TV shows. Refusing to be turned into an institution, they went their separate ways in the early 1980s. Any hope of a reunion dissolved when Gorps passed away unexpectedly in 2000.

Years later, Pfuri spontaneously joined Zach on stage at a party. The joy and creative spark of that moment led to a new friendship. Kniri soon joined them, and GRAND CANNON was formed in June 2013.

“BOOM” is an album crafted with love and bursting with joie de vivre. Far from an exercise in nostalgia, it combines the scissors, chains and cans of yore with fresh ideas and modern production.

“Less is more” was the guiding principle while writing the songs, focusing on musical essence drawn from a lifetime of experience.

The one-millionth-and-first way to play the Blues!