The all-female brass band Brass Queens brought high energy and genre-defying music to the Off the Rails concert series on Oct. 3, igniting the night with their New Orleans-inspired sound.

The Brass Queens were founded in 2019 by Ally Chapel and Alex Harris. Their goal was to show off the talent of female musicians in a field that was mostly dominated by males.  

Advertisement

“The best musicians we knew were the women,” Chapel said. “And they knew that they could use a place like ourselves to actually showcase our talent and our ideas for running a band and creating music.”

Inspired by the brass bands in New Orleans, Brass Queens blend different genres like film, latin, pop and their own originals. They put their own New Orleans twist on covers of songs by artists like Bad Bunny and Ariana Grande. 

Currently on tour, the group’s next stop is Nashville. They are looking forward to releasing their next album which is Volume 2 to their latest album “Hot Tub Sessions Volume 1.”

“Our motivation is to keep creating new music,” Chapel said. “We love traveling and bringing our music to people. So to keep it fun for us, we like to write new music and perform that, but we love sharing our ethos as a group of women that are friends and traveling and the experiences we’ve been through. We think our music reflects that,” Chapel said. 

Advertisement*

Off the Rails in Carbondale was a great opportunity for Brass Queens to showcase their music and share some unreleased songs. The crowd was big and lively with people dancing and laughing throughout the night. 

“We get a lot of joy from performing and people always tell us that they leave feeling the same way,” Chapel said.

Staff photographer Emily Brinkman can be reached at [email protected]

Advertisement