Black Stone Cherry brings heavy Southern rock sound to Blazefest

Black Stone Cherry is big in Europe – big enough to headline its own arena tour, anyway.

That’s how the Kentucky rock band spent the first part of the year, before returning to the States to promote its latest album, “Kentucky.” The band plays Thursday, April 21, at Fresno’s Rotary Amphitheater as part of Blazefest.

“We’ve got a much larger following oversees,” says guitarist Ben Well by phone in advance of the show.

European fans seems to have a stronger connection to live music.

“If they like your band, they like you. They stick with you,” Wells says.

He remembers the band’s first trip to England in 2002, where they drew 200 people on a good night, playing the opening slot on a tour for which the promoter didn’t know they’d been booked.

“Everywhere we went, we had to explain who we were,” he says.

Still, the band knew they’d make it back.

“We could feel there was a great relationship between us and the audience,” he says.

Since then, Black Stone Cherry has released five riff-heavy, distortion-laced retro blues albums – a kind of nuevo Southern rock. Its latest, the released “Kentucky,” is an raw, ferocious and energetic as anything the band has done, Well says.

For those new to the band, the album is good introduction, he says. It’s the best representation of what Black Stone Cherry is and does.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 4:03 AM with the headline "Black Stone Cherry brings heavy Southern rock sound to Blazefest."