what's with the name?
The name came to me in a fever dream.
Years ago, in the middle of the night during a particularly rough bout of strep throat, I bolted straight up in bed - fever raging - with this brilliant idea for a band name...
THE DIRTY FRENCH BROADS
For the out of towners - the French Broad River runs through Asheville, and is well-known for being astonishingly icky. Locals will warn you against putting any uptown orifices underwater, and most won't even touch it. A badass band of Asheville broads?! No way someone hasn't thought of this already. But I dug and dug and found nothing. Well alright then... guess I need to learn how to sing!
And so I did.
I kept the name in my back pocket for years, learning guitar and cutting my teeth playing Wonderwall on the campus lawn... until the summer of 2021 when I started picking with mandolin extraordinaire Scott Anders, and we decided to start a project. Once he came around to the name, and I came around to allowing (( non-broads )) in the lineup...
The Dirty French Broads were born!
meet the Broads!
Kate Thomas
singer, songwriter, guitarist, foot tammer, intermediate kazooist, class clown
Jeannie McKenzie
fiddler, vocalist, plant specialist (not that kind), healer, emotional mechanic, sweetheart
Josh Linhart
drummer, underpaid roadie, unofficial sound guy, hair stylist, resident Nice Guy
John Tirone
upright bassist, heartbeat, rock, actual mechanic, most appropriate language
