When Brooklyn collective Gentleman Brawlers (led by creative duo Becca Fox and Matt Walsh) performs, it's more than a concert: It's an electrifying experience. "If you can MOVE you can DANCE!" shouts an exuberant Fox from the stage -- or from the dance floor, where she's joined the crowd. Whether an electronic trio or a 7-piece band with dancers, Gentleman Brawlers loves to engage an audience, and the audience loves them right back. The BBC’s Tom Robinson hailed them as "a virtuoso live band, grooving together like a beautifully engineered machine.” 

Channeling musical inspo Talking Heads, the band’s distinct brand of Afrofunk and indie dance music becomes a visual as well as auditory feast on stage that Canadian blog The Revue calls "tantalizing and intoxicating." Fox, leading an expandable cast of dancers, creates thrilling, immersive live shows. A multi-disciplinary artist of Haitian and Jewish descent, Fox embodies what it means to be mixed, taking virtuosic dance turns in an eclectic range of styles from rhythm tap and West African to pop-modern contemporary.  With dance performances at the Metropolitan Opera ("Eurydice" and “Lucia di Lammermoor”) and numerous European TV ad campaigns to her credit, Fox brings a potent, incendiary presence to the stage that Arts Council of Greater New Haven described as "...airborne...half-vocalist, half-bird."

Gentleman Brawlers has two distinct musical incarnations – live and in studio – that elevate and inform each other. Through a sonic blend of disco-based horn lines, sticky highlife guitar, and polyrhythms from West Africa, Trinidad, and Brazil, Gentleman Brawlers’ live shows ignite a community-based, improvisational energy; audience engagement is integral to the band’s identity. In studio, the band will often reimagine their songs through an experimental EDM lens. Whether the audience is on the dance floor or pressing play, Gentleman Brawlers always delivers an exuberant, celebratory experience.

Walsh and Fox are not just bandmates, they’re soulmates. “When we met, Matt was a gigging musician in the country/rockabilly scene. About three months into dating, he asked if I wanted to go on a weeklong Southern tour. It wasn't glamorous -- three dudes and me in an A/C-busted $300 auctioned NYC Parks Department vehicle with its logo aggressively scraped off the side -- but I loved every minute. One night, Matt asked if I wanted to play tambourine and I jumped at the chance to join him on stage.”

As they forged a musical partnership, Fox and Walsh discovered another common link: their backgrounds as graphic designers. They bring that collaborative workflow into the studio. “With producing and mixing, we basically mirror a design studio,” explains Fox. “Matt will write dozens of hooks and I’ll pick the ones that move me. We’ll often write lyrics sitting together with a guitar, discarding all but the best ideas. We work on the understanding that we have to agree.”

Flash forward to ‘My Theory,’ their breakout Afrobeat-inspired song, which made Fox’s dancing come alive on stage. They started getting press attention. Since the success of “My Theory,” the band has opened at Brooklyn Bowl for Cimafunk and Grammy-winners Fantastic Negrito and Los Amigos Invisibles; played Pier 1 on Manhattan's Upper West Side for Summer on the Hudson, Dumbo's Live at the Archway concert series, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival (VT), Princeton University's Terrace F. Club (NJ), Musikfest (PA), Brooklyn's Knitting Factory; and in a residency at the McKittrick Hotel -- delivering unforgettable performances full of heat, crackling energy, and butt-shaking whomp.

Their core stage lineup includes Matt Walsh (keyboards, guitar, production), Becca Fox (vocals, synths, dance), Quincie Hydock (vocals, dance), Jeremy Warren (drums), Trevor Brown (bass), Tree Palmedo (trumpet) and Nick Marziani (saxophone).

Recently given a #deskoftheday shoutout on NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, Gentleman Brawlers was described as “mesmerizing” with “slick musical chemistry” at WNYC’s The Greene Space. The band is releasing a string of singles through Six Degrees Music Distribution, offering a first taste of their debut album “Truth and Magic,” dropping on the band’s own Brooklyn Fields imprint October 27th.

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We are a Brooklyn-based performance collective, making music & experiences, that move people to want to MOVE with us.