Saddlemen: Brooklyn’s Rockstar Cowboys

Written by Juliana Gomez, Photography courtesy of Saddlemen

It’s a late October night. I’m sitting at Dos Caminos with friends and am distracted by what seems to be a band, squeezing all of their equipment into the nooks and crannies of the downtown New York City restaurant. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I hold up my phone with the question typed out, “Are y'all in a band?” I get a one word answer, on an iPhone from across the restaurant: “Saddlemen.”

Saddlemen are a Brooklyn based rock & roll band that have been together since 2017. They’ve played more shows than I can count, but most recently, this past September, they released their first album The Album. All nine tracks send you back to being a kid when your dad would throw on a song from “the glory days.” This album, along with their various singles are the perfect road trip soundtrack– it’s music you want to share with friends and family over a couple beers and old stories.

I soon followed up and checked out their social media pages, Spotify, and did the whole dig. The band was nice enough to invite me to one of their shows where they were opening for Never Ending Fall at Bowery Electric on December 1st. And I went. I had no idea that I’d just walked into one of the most entertaining, foot moving sets that I have ever seen. The drummer came out first, giving the audience a nostalgic country beat. Hands were clapping; feet were stomping; then the bass player came out in a cowboy hat, followed by lead guitar and keys. 

Their ability to capture an audience, especially as an opener, blew me away. Armando, the bass player, shows no fear when interacting with the crowd and his fellow bandmates. Everyone in the room was fixated on the music and just how much fun the band themselves were having on stage. As someone who didn’t know any of their music, I found myself singing and dancing, and even asking myself how they could be the opener when it seemed like everyone at the show had just come to see them. The band’s bio perfectly encapsulates this feeling:

The trio treat their performances as sacred: they cannot conceive of something any more fun. Impossible! And so their shows take on a larger than life quality — and not only because Paul is 6 foot 8 and Armando has just the loudest voice and have you seen Skitch’s hair? Saddlemen asks you to leave real life at the door of the venue and dares you to match their energy. Maybe impossible??