ABOUT

Louie Fontaine’s album, The Sun Ain’t Black, is the culmination of three decades of experience playing and recording a wide variety of music. The Sun Ain’t Black is primarily an Americana record with blues, country and even art rock finding their way onto the disc. Shades of the Stones, Tom Petty, Nick Cave and Tom Waits peek in and out of this collection of gems. The songs are gems but the live show is an off the hook rock concert with an energy that can only be seen to be believed. If Queens of the Stone Age were an Americana band with David Bowie as the frontman, you’d have Louie Fontaine. Fontaine is a singer, guitarist and bassist who writes songs in a wide range of styles that often tell elaborate, macabre stories. He is a true Gen X-er in that his theatrical stage skills and video savvy seem plucked from the heart of the MTV era. But he's also an effective blues singer who honed his craft hanging out and playing with Louisiana soul/R&B master Rockie Charles, that Fontaine toured with, played on his records and produced his last two albums "Have You Seen My Uncle Steve" and "I Want First Class". Charles wrote the song "That's Rockin'" on Fontaine's new record. The centerpiece of the album consists of dramatic songs in the great Fontaine theatrical tradition, that were made into videos. “The Pill” is a concept song with an intricate, Bowie-like vocal arrangement, and “The Hambiltons” an elaborate murder ballad. “One of the first records I made back in the ’90s was a rock musical called Murder Before Justice,” Fontaine explains. “So there was always a theatrical element. Performing live I like to change costumes, I like to be a little more than just a man with a guitar.”