Jeremy Trudeau, 31, is a member of R&B group J Trey, performing a CD release show at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Vaudeville Mews, 212 Fourth St.
This album, "Blue I Soul," is a mix of older and newer material. Why revisit the older songs? Our original plan was to do an album of the older material remixed and a new album, but around the middle of the year we said "Screw it, let's do one album with two parts." We wanted to do those old songs again. "Drift Away" and "Lover, Lover" were big songs for us in the day. So we ended up remixing seven tracks and bringing in a full band to work on the other stuff for the first time.
Since you did your version of "Drift Away," Uncle Kracker came out with a version. What were your thoughts on his take? I didn't like his version at all. I thought he butchered the hell out of it. We're still playing it, his version didn't deter us from doing it again. I think JB sings a little better than Uncle Kracker. "Lover, Lover" just got done by a country artist (Jerrod Niemann), ours is a lot different from that. Sonia Dada was the band that originally did it, and I've always been a big fan. They did a lot of shows in Iowa and gave us permission to do ours way back when. Country is cool, but it's not really what we do.
The band has moved around the state a bit, so where's the home base? It's always been Cedar Falls, where we got started and do most of our shows. I live in Des Moines, JB is in Davenport and Jasmine is in Iowa City. We go to Iowa City to practice. We're all spread out now, but it's nice because we all have our little markets we can promote to.
