Gooding is back in Wichita on the verge of a new album
Fourteen years after he left Wichita, Gooding’s long tour itinerary brings him back this weekend for a show at Wave on Saturday night.
“It’s as much a home as anywhere. I’m really excited,” said the 47-year-old Wichita North grad, billed by his surname and leader of an eponymous rock trio. “I just really like the road. I don’t know if it was too much Willie Nelson as a child or what.”
Gooding is ramping up to the release of a new album, “99 Rebellions,” scheduled for March 18. A couple of dates at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin are on tap later in the month, where Gooding will release the album’s first single, “Texas Rose.”
“I made a bunch of depressing solo records that I’m very proud of, but frankly not something people are wanting to listen to in a pandemic and trying to find the sunshine,” he said of the new album. “This is fun because it’s high energy, and I think it’s more raw than the older band records I made. I just tried to get out of the way and make the songs work.”
Gooding, the band, was started by its leader, bassist Billy Driver (friends since Erin O’Neill their seventh-grade talent show at Marshall Middle School) and drummer Jesse Rich.
These days Gooding is joined by Erin O’Neill on bass and Kelsey Cook on drums; both sing background vocals.
O’Neill has been with Gooding for about six years and Cook recently joined.
Gooding said it was never his intention to have a trio with two women — it worked out that way because they were the best.
“Kelsey just dusted everybody else who auditioned,” he said of the Kansas City native, a drummer for the Chiefs. “She was fantastic. It doesn’t hurt that she juggles fire and does all these fun things on stage.”
The three have a great dynamic on and off stage, he said.
“Erin and Kelsey really play for the songs,” he said. “They’re empathetic to serving a song, even though they can both murder their instruments.
“I’ve got people that play incredibly well and work hard and aren’t afraid to be up at 4 a.m. for a school and stay out all night at a club,” he added.
About half of Gooding’s tour dates for the past few years, he said, have been in high schools, where the trio performs a set with the same wattage and intensity as an adult rock concert, then take a break to discuss the need for financial literacy in schools on behalf of his charity, Funding the Future.
The Miami school system has signed on after a performance and talk by Gooding, he said, to a program that includes the basics of household finance as well as lessons in predatory lending and credit scores.
“We’re hoping it lives bigger and longer than anyone in the band,” Gooding said.
When not recording, touring, or promoting financial literacy, Gooding is trying to sell his tunes for use in movies and TV shows. According to his website, his music has been used on “Saturday Night Live,” “Modern Family,” “CSI” and Kelly Clarkson’s and Stephen Colbert’s talk shows.
“It’s very, very hard to make a living making only your art,” he said.
Gooding said he’s satisfied living his dream of touring the country and performing.
“I’m not playing arenas, but we play like every night’s Madison Square Garden and I’m trying to move the person in the back row,” he said.
GOODING, WITH HARRISON STEELE
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 12
Where: Wave, 650 E. 2ndx St.
Tickets: $15, from waveict.com
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 3:23 AM.