Polka To The People
Texas' Brave Combo Finds Mainstream Appeal
Written By Paula Felps
Photo by Angilee Wilkerson

With its third Grammy Award nomination, Brave Combo just might get the one thing it as spent two decades looking for -- understanding.

The band from Denton, Texas, has spent the last 20 years on an international crusade to prove that it is a serious force to be reckoned with but, despite an impressive pedigree, the group's party image often has overshadowed its serious musicianship.

"We've never been comfortable with being perceived as a party band," explained founder Carl Finch, who was a disc jockey in a country-western bar when he launched his polka band in 1979. "For us, it has always been about making good music. There have been times when I haven't felt that what we've done was wacky at all, but people have interpreted it that way."

That interpretation is due at least in part to the band's propensity for taking rock 'n' roll standards and reinventing them as frolicking polka tunes. The band's musical toybox also includes reggae, zydeco, Muzak, ska and conjunto music, all played with a rock attitude. Although Finch and his bandmates have always taken polka music seriously, their approach often left critics baffled.

Even those who praised the band's musicianship often missed the point, viewing it as parody. When the band performed The Doors' "People Are Strange" as a hora (a type of Romanian or Israeli folk music) or "I Can See For Miles" as a polka, many saw it as a finely crafted punch line to an inside musical joke.

"I think that was an easy thing for journalists to jump on," Finch said, "but if you look at our entire song list, only about 10 songs that we do are polkas made from rock songs. And they all worked musically. That was always what we were about."

Finch developed his affinity for polka music back in the '70s, when his disdain for the music of the era left him cruising the music bargain bins. There, he discovered a treasure trove of sounds that had been overlooked -- ethnic dance rhythms such as polkas, cha-chas, tangos and waltzes. His goal in launching Brave Combo was "to take the squarest stuff possible and play it seriously."

To give the music its muscle, Finch reached beyond the standard guitar/drums/bass trappings of a rock 'n' roll band. The current lineup sees Finch on keyboards, guitar and accordion, as well as vocals. Longtime bandmate Jeffrey Barnes plays every wind instrument imaginable, often playing alto and tenor sax simultaneously. Bubba Hernandez provides bass, vocals and sometimes the tuba; Danny O’Brien mans the trumpet, and Alan Emert sticks it to the drums. The latest addition to the band is Bonnie Norris, who makes history not only as Brave Combo's first female member, but as its first violinist. To those who have followed the band's progress, the addition of a violin to a polka/rock band makes perfect sense.

"It's something entirely new for us, but it works," explained Finch, who spotted Norris playing bluegrass music with her brother on an outdoor stage in the band's hometown. "We wanted to try something new, and this was it."

Trying something new has always been what kept Brave Combo ahead of the cutting edge of music.

The band's first EP, Polkamania, came out in 1980 on its own Four Dots label and instantly caught attention from the national music press. Brave Combo's form of "nuclear polka" was a dramatic departure from the music caught between the death of disco and the dawn of the New Wave revolution; the infectious energy of the music made crowds and critics alike take notice. Although the band’s first tour was of mental institutions, it soon was playing more notable venues.

The band continued gaining momentum in the '80s, releasing a string of albums on its own label before landing on the Rounder Records roster. As the depth of the music developed, so did the breadth of the band’s fan base. They are huge in Japan, where they’ve toured three times, and the band also toured Norway and Denmark last year.

"What's amazing to us now is that we have people coming to the shows who say, 'You played at my parents' wedding, and I wasn't even born then,'" Finch said. "We see that happening now more than we care to admit. There's a lot of second-generation Brave Combo fans out there."

He said that is true of fans in Nebraska, where Brave Combo has been playing for about 16 years.

"We’ve definitely built up a following, at least in Lincoln and Omaha," he said. "There are a lot of people who come out to our shows that we now consider friends as well as fans. A lot of them are now bringing their kids out to the shows."

That is part of the beauty of a Brave Combo experience; it is a multigenerational, multi-ethnic event. With a solid Czech population, Nebraska has become a regular stop on the band's constant tour circuit. Finch says when they play Sokol Hall - where they will appear Feb. 24 - they bring out a mix of about half rock 'n' roll fans and half hard-core polka fans.
'We love playing to crowds like that," he acknowledged. "It makes you think about your set list a lot harder. It's a good chance to play polkas for people who might be more into a rock groove. Then everyone really gets into it, and it makes for a great night of dancing."
Peppered in with the traditional polkas like "The Happy Wanderer," are such gems as "Purple Haze - The Jimi Hendrix Polka," which Finch admited everyone loves. At the Zoo Bar, where Brave Combo will play Feb. 25, he expects a similar crowd. In fact, the band has developed such a strong fan base at the Lincoln club that it was recently featured on the public television program, "Live at the Zoo Bar," which typically is reserved for broadcasting local acts.

If anything makes this trek to Nebraska more special than the rest, it's that the band is bypassing a chance to go to the Grammy Awards. Instead, they'll be making the drive north and will arrive in Omaha at about the time they find out if the third Grammy nomination was the charm. The album Polkasonic, released on Cleveland International Records, goes up against some of polka's biggest, traditional names as it vies for the music industry's top award. The band's previous albums receiving nominations were 1998's Polka Party With Brave Combo: Live and Wild! and 1995's Polkas for a Gloomy World. With Polkasonic, the band has issued its best album to date, showcasing Brave Combo for what it really is: a rock band that loves to polka.

"We won’t know until the day before the show if this is a celebration or a wake," said Finch. Bassist Hernandez will attend the awards ceremony and fly into Omaha the morning of the Sokol Hall show. Either way, though, the band will keep doing what it set out to do from the start.

"What we're doing is bringing more attention to polka music. Polka is the last ethnic form of music that hasn't found mainstream popularity. It still hasn't had a hip attachment to it."
But he is confident that, like reggae, Cajun, blues and bluegrass before it, polka finally is coming into its own as a hip musical force.

"People want to polka," he contended. "“The innate joy of the music makes people want to dance. We see proof of that every night we're on stage."

Reprinted with the permission of the The Reader-Omaha, NE and Paula Felps