Six Gun Sally ready to fire off new single

Southern rock band Six Gun Sally is set to drop a new single titled “Redneck White & Badass Blue” June 24 on all music streaming services and retail outlets.

The fiery seven-piece powerhouse band of accomplished musicians has concert dates throughout the summer and tonight in Middletown, N.Y., they open for their friends and musical icons, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Six Gun Sally is riding the momentum from “Drunk Text,” a single from its 2021 self-titled album that nearly cracked the top 10 on the Billboard country singles chart for streaming, peaking at No. 12.

Seeing his band on the charts was a surreal moment for lead singer and drummer Dave Barbe, who started playing at 5 years old in Monongahela.

The musical journeyman, entrepreneur and father lives in Charleroi now. He’s been causing a ruckus with Six Gun Sally since 1989, but for years he wasn’t playing as much music as he wanted to. Barbe went to college at Duquesne and didn’t quite fit in the music program, instead choosing to get a business degree.

“These guys all wanted to be musical directors or technicians and I wanted to be (Led Zeppelin drummer) John Bonham,” said Barbe. While making a living and raising two children, Barbe helped co-write songs with other artists and was involved with a couple of projects from a managerial standpoint. But eight years ago, he reprioritized some things and placed more emphasis on playing and writing music.

“I said, ‘screw this,’ you know, ‘I’ve got some really good people,’” Barbe said. “And I added another singer, Lori (Bernish), from a band called the Buddha Babies. And we just started to try to get serious about it, you know, and it started to take off a bit.”

The band’s 2021 album is the work of friends who’ve written songs from an emotionally raw state of mind and then played them live for months, reading the room and revising them.

At least it feels that way — the arrangements are “lived in,” classic and pushed to their highest RPM. The counter-harmonic guitar work on a song like “No Reason to Love” feels more sung than worked out by hand, like the guitar motif in Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years.”

Barbe’s main co-writer, Jeff Thurston, is a Pittsburgh native who works in the Nashville circuit as a session guitarist, songwriter and mix engineer. Thurston’s reputation among some of the area’s most notable musicians is undeniable.

“He’s well regarded as being a world class studio musician,” said Jenn Wertz of Rusted Root. “As far as guitar playing goes and getting the right tone out guitars, he plays with as much ease as someone like Jeff Healey. And he comes from that Buddy Guy school. It comes real natural to him.”

Wertz was introduced to Thurston’s playing when listening to his band The Vibro Kings around town in the 1990s. She said they managed to play the blues convincingly, in no small part because of Thurston’s talent. “Redneck White & Badass Blue” was written by Thurston, Anthony Smith and Dave Barbe and produced by Thurston, Matt Muckle and Barbe. It features instrumental and vocal performances by all seven members, including Barbe on drums, Lori Bernish with background vocals, Jeff Yeckel on lead guitar, Dan Rach on keys, Stan Brusoski on bass and Billy G adding percussion.

“The idea was to write a tune that captured the spirit and essence of music from the early ’70s — all in one song. This track has Skynyrd and Southern country rock smeared all of it; it pays homage to those bands that made music great in that era,” Thurston said. “The lyrics represent a prideful stand for our heritage, our flag and those that have sacrificed for our freedoms.

“Six Gun Sally is a band of Americans who sing about love, loss, freedom and hope, and recalling where they came from.”

The music video for “Redneck White & Badass Blue” was shot in Pittsburgh by Peter Guellard of Psycho Tribe and is positioned for a world premiere in early July.

Six Gun Sally will be rocking Coconut Joe’s Tiki Bar in Finleyville July 4 and the Aquatorium in Monongahela July 9.