Music Notes: Tribal Tongue

A few years ago in my travels to southwest Florida I first encountered Tribal Tongue. They were heating up the stage at The Beached Whale in Fort Myers Beach to the delight of locals and tourists alike. My husband and I recognized them as members of The Howlin’ Dogs, which was one of our friend’s bands. That friend is drummer Stet Howland, but on that night, Stet was conspicuously absent and Gary Renshaw was drumming for the Howlin’ Dogs – later becoming known as Tribal Tongue.

Though playing in a bar, it was obvious that this was not your typical bar band. Their playful gregariousness was only overshadowed by their dead-on precision musicianship. So it was no surprise to learn that Tribal Tongue’s members, having played with bands we all consider icons of American rock, all have impressive resumes.

Guitarist Tag Graves, a Louisiana native, is son of Red Graves, who played with Hank Williams, Sr. In his younger days Tag played both in a band with his brothers and another band that was signed to Polygram records. From there he was discovered by Leon Russell and asked to join his band. It was through his employment with Russell that Tag was able to perform with members of the Rod Stewart Band, the Charlie Daniels Band and The Southern Rock Legends.

Gary Renshaw, Tribal Tongue’s drummer, played professionally in the Baltimore/Washington area during the 80’s and moved to Florida in 1989. There he met Dave Hlubeck of Molly Hatchet and helped him form Hlubeck & Friends, out of which another project, The Southern Rock Legends was formed. SRL was made up of Renshaw, Hlubeck, Mike Estes (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Gary Nutt (Cinderella, Chubby Checker) and Tag Graves. They disbanded within 2 years when Hlubeck re-joined Hatchet.

Bryce Barnes, who plays bass for Tribal Tongue, performed as lead singer in other bands demonstrating a voice that has been compared to Jeff Tate and Rob Halford. When his east coast band broke up in the late 80’s, Barnes was approached by Rickey Medlocke of Blackfoot about joining them as their bass player. At that time, Stet Howland was also a part of the Blackfoot lineup, along with John Housley, and Medlocke. Like Renshaw’s experience with Hlubeck however, Medlocke eventually returned to his first band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Blackfoot fell away, though the remaining members still played together in Florida.

We finally get to Tribal Tongue’s lead singer, Joey Monroe. Joey is from Vermont and had been playing in the 80’s with recording artist, Engine Joe. With the winds of change in the industry in the late 80’s/early 90’s, Engine Joe’s deal and appeal were shelved. Monroe then decided to venture south to Florida as well, where he met and was hired by Bryce Barnes and Stet Howland to front the Howlin’ Dogs. When Stet went back on the road with WASP in the 90’s, The Howlin’ Dogs consisted of Stet, Tag, Bryce, and Joey. With Stet out touring the world, Gary joined the Dogs, and in October of 2005 Tribal Tongue officially became what it...

We hope that you enjoyed reading this excerpt from "Tribal Tongue". If you would like to read the entire article and more, you can order a back issue of Jan / Feb 2007 where this article was originally published.

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