This week’s vendor spotlight will rock your socks off! Introducing to you, Music City Rhythm Revue, a premiere Nashville rock band! This talented group of musicians deliver a quality pop/rock performance at any corporate event or wedding reception. We asked Music City Rhythm Revue’s very own music director, Vince Wynne, some questions to get to know him and his band better. Keep scrolling to learn more about this popular band!
What was your dream job growing up?
As a child I would often hide away in the privacy of my bedroom and blast Van Halen, Blondie, and Queen records and imagine that I was them – lots of air guitar. So basically my dream job was “rock star.” I became a musician, but never quite achieved “rock star” lol.
What does a typical wedding day look like for you?
These are long days. If it’s a Nashville wedding, we typically load-in at 1:00pm. We provide full production which means I carry the entire PA (trailer). The load-out and setup is about 2 hours on average. Soundcheck also doubles as rehearsal for all new material, special requests, etc. The band typically rehearses for 1 hour, then we scurry off to changing rooms where we change into formal wear. Guests often start arriving for ceremony around 4pm, and Cocktail Hour marks the beginning of the event for us. On rare occasions we will also provide the ceremony music. But typically our 4 hour performance block is spread between Cocktail Hour, Dinner Set, and Dance Sets. Most events end by 11pm, and exhausted and sweaty as we often are, we begin the break-down process and load-out, which usually takes 90 minutes. Wedding day is a 12 hour day for local weddings. Out of town weddings can sometimes be a 24-hour day for the band, unless we stay overnight which we often do for any event over 3 hours away.
How did you get into the music business?
I started playing guitar when I was a child. Many of my best friends in high school also played instruments, so gathering in someone’s garage to “jam” became a regular occurrence. Once I entered college, playing parties and local bars was just what you did if you wanted to be taken seriously. Getting invited back meant that you were doing something right. In my early 20s, a band that I was part of toured full-time across the Southeast for a couple years. We wrote our own songs, and we were on our way to getting a record deal when the inevitable “creative differences” split up the band. That’s when I moved to Atlanta, then to Nashville a few years later.
How long have you been in business? Why did you decide to start a business?
I decided to start the corporate & wedding entertainment band five years ago. Over the years, I had been a part of several promising new bands with talented friends. It was always the same vicious cycle. We would have a mutual desire to create a certain kind of music, we gathered the right musicians, we wrote, rehearsed, gigged, went into the studio, toured, and eventually split up. It’s very frustrating to pour so much of yourself into projects that eventually stop due to personal disagreements or creative differences, but this is very common in the music business. By 2010, I knew that I had built solid relationships with enough gifted musicians that I could launch a successful corporate/wedding entertainment company. The goal was to have a band that transcended the musicians. In other words, the band would always exist no matter which musicians were in the band at any given time. Music City Rhythm Revue emerged out of this desire, and we have been extremely fortunate to have our event calendar nearly full for the past five years.
What is your favorite part of a wedding day/event day?
My favorite part of the day is arriving to the venue with the trailer and seeing my entire team. The majority of my job as the owner, manager, liaison, band leader, is practically over. From there my talented team members virtually pick up the ball and carry us through to the end of the night. I play bass in the band, and I certainly love the end of the night after a successful event, but my favorite part of the day is arriving at the venue and seeing my entire team there.
Who would be your dream celebrity to play for?
Well Nashville has a way of making these types of questions a reality. We have already played a couple of VIP weddings where several heroes of mine were guests in attendance. One in particular was Steven Van Zandt aka “Little Steven” – Bruce Springsteen’s long-time guitarist. It’s very surreal to see Little Steven out there dancing to your band. That happened. But this is a tough question… I’m a huge David Lynch fan. His films always have amazing soundtracks, so to be asked to play any event that he is associated with would be a dream.
If you could go anywhere tomorrow, where would you go?
Turks and Caicos Islands.
What is the most requested wedding song?
Aside from the standards like “My Girl” and “At Last,” it would have to be “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks. Maybe it’s just a southern thing. But it’s amazing how much joy that song brings a room full of wedding guests celebrating a marriage. (A close second in the state of Tennessee is Rocky Top.)
Thank you for sharing your story with us! We loved reading about your journey and can’t wait to work with you again!
