Joe Bellanti, organist and keyboardist for Organ Fairchild, sat down with me this week to chat about the band and their upcoming show at Kenny’s Westside. As he entered the Zoom meeting, I did a double take seeing Joe’s screen name was Beefer Sutherland. This was the first of many laughs we shared during the interview. 

Hailing from Buffalo, New York and voted New York’s top emerging band in 2021, the organ trio have recently been playing to crowds in the Midwest. Peoria is lucky enough to see them round out their current two week tour when they play at Kenny’s Westside this Saturday.

Joe has enjoyed the tour so far, “Everyone that we’ve met at every venue has just been incredible - really taking care of us and asking if we need anything. The people that come out to see the music are people that love live music and come out to support it.”

Joe Bellanti, guitarist Dave Ruch, and drummer and percussionist Corey Kertzie have known eachother 40 years and have been playing together and separately in bands since 1983.

After playing Grateful Dead covers for decades, the band started writing their own songs when Organ Fairchild was created in 2020, debuting “Brewed in Buffalo” in 2021 and “Leisure Suit” in 2023.

“The process [of writing] is very different I think for each of us,” explaines Joe. “If I’ve got an idea, or if Dave or Corey does, we’ll bring it to rehearsal and try it out and just see what works. It’s very collaborative.”

Both original albums received positive feedback, and in June of this year, Organ Fairchild released a third album, this time of covers, titled “Songs We Didn’t Write.” It features an assortment of songs from icons including Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, and even Harry Styles. There’s a gritty rendition of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” and Jorma Kaukonen from Hot Tuna and The Jefferson Airplane also joins the band as a guest collaborator on one song.

“We’re just three guys from a basement,” Joe said with a laugh. “We’re out doing our thing and we’d be doing this if nobody comes to a show or if we played a festival and there’s 15,000 people - you’d see the same show, because we love doing what we do.”

Organ Fairchild’s next album is all original and comes out this Spring. The band could not be more excited. You can listen to their albums on Spotify’s “Instrumental Funk” editorial playlist, and “Brewed in Buffalo” and “Leisure Suit” are also available on vinyl.

And of course, you can check out Organ Fairchild’s melodic jams for yourself when they share the stage with Stealin the Farm at Kenny’s Westside Pub this Saturday, October 12th.

Tickets are $10 and doors open at 9:00pm. Come check out what critics are calling “one of the most exciting bands to come out of the New York music scene."