WILKES-BARRE – The Badlees, a Central Pennsylvania national recording act with a connection to Greater Pittston, will be releasing new music with the original line up shipping on Thursday, Dec. 15.
The self-titled album, The Badlees, their ninth studio album, is available for preorder now as well as a current download purchase at www.tinyurl.com/4458u3t2. It’s the first album the original line up has put out since 2002.
The band put out two more albums after the departure of member Jeff Feltenberger in 2009 (Love is Rain) and 2013 (double-album Epiphones and Empty Rooms).
Bassist Paul Smith and guitarist/lyricist Bret Alexander departed from the band in 2014.
The original line up of Smith, Alexander, Feltenberger (guitar), Ron Simasek (drums) and Pete Palladino (lead singer), reunited when the band was inducted into the Central Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame on July 1, 2021.
With a renewed spark, the original line up announced a special show for the City of Pittston’s event Pittston Prohibition on Sept. 19, 2021.
The band added two showed in 2022 selling out 24 hours for the first show and 30 minutes for the second show at Englewood in Hummelstown.
The band played, once again, at the second annual Pittston Prohibition on Oct. 4, 2022, and again on Nov. 26, 2022, at The Front Street Station, Northumberland, Pa., near Lewisburg.
The Badlees are following up the album release this week with a concert at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, Dec. 23.
Over their existence as a band, members have had outside individual projects and some of the members have taken on a career outside of music.
Alexander, a Dupont resident, has been a constant staple in the area performing, writing and producing projects for himself and other artists including West Pittston native Joe Burke.
“We (The Badlees) play when we can,” Alexander said. “It’s moving along pretty well and it’s settling in. You’re not playing four nights a week. We’re not on tour, but it feels pretty good.”
Even though Alexander would be all in regarding a full-time tour schedule, lead singer Pete Palladino has a main career in New Jersey outside of music.
“It’s up to him (Pete) and I know we’d all do it,” Alexander added. “But, I don’t see it (full time) happening. It just can’t.”
Alexander keeps his schedule very busy playing several days a week all over Northeast Pa., including gigs outside the area.
“I got plenty of things on my own, so I’m not as concerned as I was 10 years ago,” Alexander remarked on when the band was playing full time. “It would be unwise for me to think we were getting back together on a full-time basis.”
Alexander has been known to play as many as 250 to 300 dates per year as a solo act or with others.
The Badlees new music for the self-titled album came about when the band reformed with the original line up.
“The shows we have been doing we’ve been trying to do something special for each one,” Alexander said. “We’ve booked this Kirby show at the end of the year and we said, maybe we should try to make a record and it went from there. We made the record for basically something to talk about for the Kirby show.”
The Badlees new album contains 10 songs predominately written by Alexander saying there wasn’t a lot of time for any of the band members to get together to collaborate.
“I’m self-employed and I have a studio and I certainly have the flexibility and the place to put the music down,” Alexander admitted. “We have one song (on the album) written by an old collaborator, Mike Naydock, and we haven’t done anything with him in a long time so I asked him for some songs and I picked one.”
Alexander, like the other members of The Badlees, knows the show at the Kirby Center will probably not lead to the band playing full time again or even leading to a long tour.
“I don’t think we are expecting to get anything out of the concert at the Kirby,” Alexander said. “It’s just a gig, it’s not a career move. Right now we are at a level of acceptance.”
Alexander said if the band gets an offer they can’t refuse, you just never know – “anything is possible.”
“We made a (new) record, we made a good one and things are still going good,” Alexander said. “We’ve awakened our audience that we didn’t know we still had and all of that is great. We’ve made the best music we can and everyone loves a comeback story.”
Right now the band has no label or management and are doing it all on their own for now.
In the meantime, the five original members will take jobs one gig at a time when time allows and enjoy each other’s company once again and give their fan base new music and some live shows when available.
Two local acts, Joe Burke & Co. as well Dustin Douglas & The Electric Gentlemen will be the supporting acts at the Kirby show.
To pre-order the new CD, go to https://tinyurl.com/4458u3t2.
