Less than three weeks after a rollicking, sold-out CD-release show for the duo’s brand new studio album, band members Josh Worsham and Jesse Ray surprisingly have parted ways.
CD-Release Raucousness: Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish revving up the Tip Top Deluxe earlier this month. (Photo/Anna Sink)
Life doesn’t stand still, for good and for bad.
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Just when it seems things are in a groove, bumps in the road can spill that coffee all over your lap. Or maybe there’s just a sudden urge to take a left turn.
Award Winners: Josh Worsham, left, and Jesse Ray won a Jammie Award earlier this year from WYCE. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Popular West Michigan bands such as The Crane Wives, The Legal Immigrants and The Outer Vibe have undergone lineup shifts for various reasons but continue to hammer away at what they do best. And the Grand Rapids band 13th Hour – led by guitarists Ken Bierschbach and Mark Swanson – recently played its final gig, after deciding it was time to take a hiatus from the rigors of performing.
“I don’t know that it’s a forever thing,” Bierschbach said. “Mark and I are certainly going to stay in close contact …”
Now, word comes that drummer Josh Worsham – half of the energetic Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish rockabilly/blues rock duo – is leaving the band, just weeks after release of a much-anticipated new studio album, “Dead Man Walking,” which spawned one of the most raucous, over-the-top, sold-out shows that Grand Rapids’ Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill has ever experienced.
Different Dynamic: Jesse Ray intends to continue with a new drummer. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Worsham said only that “there was some internal conflict in the band,” but that both he and Jesse Ray continue to “truly respect each other as friends and musicians.” He encouraged fans to continue supporting Jesse Ray’s project. Worsham, for his part, is “actively shaping a new band” for himself.
“Today has been hard,” he said Wednesday of the dramatic change in a two-man band that’s been together for more than two years, “but he and I will both bounce back.”
Singer-guitarist Jesse Ray Cahue conceded he was “shocked and pretty freaked out” by the development, but that Jesse Ray & The Carolina Catfish would continue with another drummer and play the shows the band already had booked, including an Oct. 31 Halloween bash at Mulligan’s Pub in Grand Rapids.
“I’m pretty invested in it,” Jesse Ray told Local Spins. “Everything’s going to be fine and the show will go on. … (But) it will definitely be a different dynamic.”
Like Worsham, Jesse Ray insisted that, “We’re both going to support each other. It’s just going to be different.”
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