Puzza Crudo officially The Boulevard
When: Friday, May 2
Where: North Gate Tavern
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The Lafayette, Louisiana-based Puzza Crudo appeared in May 2006. The band mixed a powerful female voice with jazz and funk to create a fresh rock sound.
Even though the band’s name started out as Puzza Crudo, the group found that people didn’t really understand it.
They needed a name that would be a little more marketable.
The band, which includes Tabu (vocals/flute), Josh LeBlanc (guitar), Sean Landry (drums), and Matt Ikner (bass), decided to change their name to The Boulevard after walking around the campus of the University of Louisiana.
“We officially changed it two or three months ago, but didn’t start announcing it until [later] so there would be a smooth transition. We booked shows as Puzza Crudo so fans would come to our shows and then during the show we would announce a name change,” explained LeBlanc.
A show in Alexandria, La. for St. Patrick’s Day last March allowed the band to test drive the new name since no one in that area had heard of them.
“We were handing out CDs to people with our old name and would tell them we used to be Puzza Crudo, but now we’re transitioning to the name The Boulevard,” LeBlanc said. “We walked up to people and they remembered the name The Boulevard and not the other name. That was the nail in the coffin for the official name change.”
The Boulevard finally has the name set, but their journey as a band isn’t any easier. Tabu tells us a little about the struggles of being a front woman in the rock music industry.
“It’s extremely hard to be a female front person in this industry because you’re looking at males dominating everything. They want to see what you can do and even if you can [rock], they still won’t show you any respect.”
“It’s definitely an uphill battle that we constantly face as a band,” added Ikner. “It’s a fight to prove what we have to offer with a female singer in our group. We’re getting to the point where people are starting to recognize us not just as the band with the female singer, but as a really good band.”
However, even with an original sound, it took the members of The Boulevard awhile to find their unique niche.
“It took us a really long time to figure out what kind of music fit us because we were all so different,” Landry explained. “We just had to keep working at it and keep trying to find things that worked for all of us together. It really comes out on this new recording that we just finished.”
The band has just completed a new EP with five songs.
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