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SS: So Alex Mallet is a guitarist. He's also the one who's written the bulk of the songs,
the originals, and he's from Fort Lauderdale, near Fort Lauderdale. He came to town
about eight years ago with another band and then he formed a trio with that band.

Then that band kind of broke up and he started playing with a bunch of other bands
in New Orleans, a lot of Americana bands and rock bands. Now he's playing with
John Papa Gros, who's a pretty popular keyboard player. He does like Dr John

tributes and stuff, and he played in a band called Papa Grows Funk with Russell
Batiste also. Yeah, Phil Breen, he's played with Russell until his passing, and he plays
in a bunch of other bands. He's kind of a Bourbon Street veteran since playing music

Bourbon Street, New Orleans

in New Orleans like 21 years ago. He's from Philadelphia originally, but he's been
in New Orleans for like 21 years. He's been in a gazillion bands too, but the ones of

note that you might recognise, he played for Samantha Fish for like three years.

BiTS: Okay.

SS: Russell Batiste, he's played with Ernie Vincent and, yeah, a lot of projects. He
had his own band for a while, and then he stopped. I'd tried to get him to join my

band for many years, but it was only until two years ago that he did. And when I say
join the band, I say this pretty loosely, because like I said, when I first started it, I

had this idea and I was like, okay, look, I want this to be like a band of sidemen. I
want to try playing with a lot of different players. If you need to sub out your gig, I
encourage that because I want to try different players and see what we can do and
have fun and learn new tunes and stuff, and still be in the band. I'm not even sure