ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

A local band could soon be making its way to bigger stages thanks to some recent work.

Tuesday, it was announced Joey Dean & The Dry River Band had been named as finalists for this year’s Heartland Music Awards. The band’s members are finalists in three separate categories: Band of the Year (Joey Dean & The Dry River Band), Lead Guitarist of the Year (Shane Berggren) and Drummer of the Year (Stevie Stixx).

Frontman Joe LaBelle said the journey to the awards has been a little while coming.

“Savannah Chestnut, who is a fellow musician, started the Heartland Music Awards, and they put out their website and everything back around February. Only musicians could participate in the process, and they could nominate who they thought should be considered, and up to three per category could be nominated,” LaBelle said. “We did that, and we were nominated, so that was cool. Ultimately, there were so many nominations, they decided to have a second round where everybody could vote for one out of out of the nominations that were on the list, and so we went through that whole process, and then Oct. 13, it was announced who was in the finals out of that round of nominations. Savannah sent out a message to all the nominees or all the finalists, and we got a message from her, so that's how we found out.”

Upon receiving the message, LaBelle said there was a lot of excitement.

“We didn't expect to be nominated at all. We kind of figured, since we were nominated in the first round, that was great, but we figured that would probably as far as it was going to go, and we were fine with that,” LaBelle said. “Shane, my guitarist, was pretty excited – he just started playing guitar for me slightly more than a year ago, so he's still new to this country music thing. He’s also in an alternative rock band, which also got nominated as a finalist, so he's living a high life right now. Our drummer got nominated for drummer of the year, and he's pretty flattered by that. It didn't at first set in, but as the last couple days have gone on, we think it's really cool, and we're hoping this helps open some doors for us on booking and things like that. Even just getting the one category of a band of the year would have been great. But for Shane and Steve to get recognized for their skills on the drums and on the guitar, I think that's fantastic. I've been playing with a lot of musicians over the 30 years I've been playing music, and these guys are two of the best. And you know, we wouldn't be a very good band without the two of them. So it's good they're getting the recognition they deserve.”

LaBelle said there has been a lot of hard work and a lot of music to get to this point.

“It's been six years of a lot of hard work, and Steve has only been with us three of those six years, and Shane's only been with us for just more than a year now,” LaBelle said. “It took a lot of playing with a lot of different people to find the perfect group to figure out what kind of sound we wanted and what direction we wanted to go, and I'm just really glad how, after six years, it finally feels like we’re moving forward and not just stuck in one place, so I'm just really thankful, being nominated and having our peers recognize the hard work we’ve put in and everything else. It’s huge because sometimes you think you're not noticed by anyone else, but that's not always the case – apparently, someone’s been paying attention, so that's pretty cool.”

The Heartland Music Awards ceremony will be at 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Granada Theater in Emporia, and LaBelle said he and the guys are excited.

“At the moment, we've been trying to figure out what to wear. It's a formal event, and none of us have really had to dress formally since maybe college, so we're trying to figure out exactly what to wear, and we've thrown some goofy ideas out there,” LaBelle admitted with a laugh. “But we're excited, we get to take our spouses and have a night where we hang out with other musicians, and there's a lot of them that we respect. Thunderbird Hotel out of Dodge City was nominated as well, and I think it's cool how we're the only two Southwest Kansas bands that made the finals. I think it'll be cool to be around our peers for that evening, it should be great.”

And after from the awards ceremony, LaBelle said there are no plans to fully slow down.

“We're actually working on our second album. We've started recording, and we're planning to have a our first single from that album out by the end of the year. We're working on getting the timeline set up with everything, but that's the main thing we're working on, and we’re also booking into 2027,” LaBelle said. “We've got pretty much the rest of this year set up, but we know that we're going to have a return trip to Deadwood, S.D. next year – we went there this year and played for four days and had a blast, and they invited us back, which is great. We're also planning to go to Colorado and play some places there, and we’re looking into getting back to Oklahoma and hopefully Texas. I'm really excited about this second album. The first one came out in November 2024, and most of those songs were already 10 to 12 years old at the time because I’d written and performed here and there but sat on them for a long time, so to finally get them recorded was a big deal for me. And as the guy who writes a lot of our material, I'm really excited about this next chapter because there's some new stuff and some stuff I wrote several years ago, so we're really excited to kind of showcase the direction the band has decided to go, and just to share my music with everyone.”

LaBelle said people should continue encouraging local musicians.

“I just encourage people to support local music – it doesn't matter if it's us, it could be anybody, whether it's live music at your local bar or somebody local who happens to have songs on Spotify or YouTube or somewhere else,” LaBelle said. “Supporting local music is huge – that's the reason these awards exist. Kansas is often overlooked when it comes to music, and there are a ton of great musicians from Kansas, so I would encourage everyone to support them because you never realize how much that means to somebody when they get just that little bit of support. I've been in this business a long time, and I remember nearly everyone who has given us kind words and supported us. It's one of the greatest things in the world.”