An indomitably soulful sound

Kat Wright and her band are living the dream, and we fans get to listen in

OK, OK, the secret’s out. Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band have grown from a Thursday night fixture at Burlington’s Radio Bean to one of the hottest bands in Vermont.

And while this columnist (and Burlington area native) is admittedly ashamed of being a little late to the party, he was happy to spend Friday afternoon in Kat Wright’s natural habitat — in the dim confines of Radio Bean, drinking a tall glass of hot coffee across the table from the Queen City songstress herself.

For those who haven’t seen it, “sultry” really is the best word to describe not only Wright’s room-filling vocals, but the whole Indomitable Soul Band experience. Big, loud and oh so danceable, few Burlington acts go so well with a hoppy pint (or two, or three). The band offers a chance to jump around a sweaty dance floor and get lost in walls of syrupy, soulful sound.

I can’t find a better way to say the cliché phrase “dream come true” in any thesaurus, so I’ll just get straight to the point: Kat Wright is exactly where she wants to be in life. And it shows.

The starry-eyed 26-year-old talks about music as if it’s taking her for a trip. Things just sort of happen. People go to her shows. Major-label record companies call her up for a chat. Newspaper reporters ask about her vintage fur coat collection.

A few years ago, Wright, of Penfield, N.Y., near Rochester, was studying visual art at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y.

“When I finished my undergrad, I felt pressure to get a job, to get an apartment, to try be an adult, to live paycheck to paycheck,” she recalls. “I said, ‘You know what? No. I want to be a singer, and I want to know where that will take me.’”

Wright frequented Burlington in her folk-singer days, traveling around the region with duo Loveful Heights. Radio Bean quickly appealed to her, and she moved to Burlington. The North Winooski Street spot instantly became home — she now works there, plays a gig every Thursday, and even married the owner, Lee Anderson.

Wright exudes the kind of confidence reserved for talented singers, but she’s humble too, and a little overwhelmed with how busy the band has been.

“We’re still kind of chugging along,” she says, mentioning the group’s upcoming and yet-to-be-named EP. “Until the album’s finished, we’re kind of at a standstill for a little bit.”

It all started around two years ago when Wright, by then a Radio Bean regular, was talking to prolific Burlington keyboardist Shane Hardiman about how the venue could fill an open Thursday spot. Not many bands were playing soul, so Hardiman gathered some of Burlington’s best and brightest — bassist Josh Weinstein, drummer Dan Ryan, sax player Jake Whitesell, guitarist Max Bronstein, baritone saxophonist Luke Laplant and trumpet player Dave Purcell — to back Wright’s vocals.

After building a steady following, the group is on the precipice of going huge.

If the Indomitable Soul Band doesn’t go big — and I mean, really big — within the next few years, there’s probably something wrong with the universe. The story of the group’s success is perhaps the story of modern music in the digital age. Build a passionate following, work hard, post a professional-looking video on the Internet and people will notice.

In January, Burlington-based Wondermind Pictures director Matt Day gave the group’s original “All About You” the artsy music video treatment. Today, it has nearly 6,000 views, and the calls keep coming.

“It reached over 3,000 views in the first week and we got a lot of bizarre, random Internet exposure,” Wright recalls. “We got a feature on this blog ‘Next to Shine,’ and they just did a second feature on us. When that happened, I got a call from Columbia Records, and I got a call from Relix magazine. People were just being like, ‘Who are you? What’s up? What’s next?”

Without even an album, Kat Wright & the Indomitable Soul Band are on the verge of breaking through. Catch ’em while you can, and you won’t be disappointed.

Nathan Burgess, of Burlington, is a reporter for the Stowe Reporter and a musician who has played in several area bands. He studied journalism and jazz theory at Johnson State College.