Formed in 2009, the Moetones are made up of Moe Cooley (guitar, vocals), Tomoe Gozen (bass, vocals), Dale X Allen (guitar) and Peter Ortego on drums.
The band has two albums out: “Low Brow,” released in 2011, and “Heartbreakers Ball,” released in 2014.
“We’ve grown as a band and plan to ramp it up in 2017,” Cooley says. “We’re putting together songs for a new album.”
The band is dedicated and has a good mix of talent.
Cooley is a lifelong guitar player and songwriter with country roots in the Austin music scene.
“We’ve created out own genre and our songs are inspired by what we would like written on our tombstones,” he says.
Gozen grew up in Japan and learned classical piano for 15 years. Drawing on her musical background, she gave the bass a whirl and it stuck.
“I realized the bass is the instrument I’ve wanted to play all my life,” she said. “I’m a bass-line girl, and tune into it whenever I listen to music. I sing the bass line too.”
“Rippin’,” is how Cooley describes Allen’s lead guitar playing, the Moetones’ newest member.
Another Austin transplant, Allen is known as a hard rockin’ hillbilly with a hankering for honkeytonk religion.
His other band, Genuine Cowhide, is well known in Texas Hill Country for their “tangle of modern, yet retro-roots Americana styles – from shuffle two-step, to swing rock-abilly into spaghetti Western,” according to mytexasmusic.com
Over the years, drummer Peter Ortego has kept a steady and snappy rhythm for numerous bands in the Four Corners, and keeps the Moetones in good time as they veer off into diverse rock and country genres.
Gozen said the New Year’s Eve audience can expect a cross-generational country style with a creative edge.
“We love playing together and have fun generating positive energy with our music,” she says. “While we all have talent, we also know that success is all about practice so we are really focused and don’t mess around.”
Check out the Moetones on Saturday, Dec. 31, at the Riverfront Bar and Grill in Dolores. The show starts about 9 p.m., and there is no cover. The band plays Blondie’s, in Cortez, on Friday, Dec. 30.
jmimiaga@the-journal.com