Born in the bosom of the rice fields of Judice in the wet winter of 1976, Bas Clas (a Cajun insult for those deemed “low-class”) developed quite a following in Acadiana. They were different from other bands in that they did very few cover tunes, concentrating instead on original music, mostly written by guitarist/vocalist Donnie Picou. Along with younger brother Steve, bassist Geoff Thistlethwaite and drummer Ted Cobena, Bas Clas not only had a following in this area, they also caught the ear of influential record people.
The band released three singles, “Chasing a Mad Dog,” “Serfin’ USA/Physical World” and “She Can’t Say No,” which got some local radio airplay but little national attention. “Man, there were a couple of guys that shopped us around to every record label you could think of,” Steve Picou said. “We thought we were really close to that big record deal, but it just didn’t happen.”
Bas Clas stayed in Acadiana until 1986. “The oilfield was in bad shape, and the economy in Lafayette went through the floor. There just weren’t many people going out to nightclubs. Tons of people left Lafayette and moved to Atlanta,” Steve said, “including us.”
With the help of the studio musicians, the songs sound just I imagined when I wrote them. — Donnie Picou
By that time, Ted Cobena left the band and later moved to Florida. He was replaced by John Boissiere, a drummer from New Orleans. Bas Clas survived five more years. But with difficulty making ends meet, the band decided to go their separate ways two months after playing Jazzfest in May 1991. Donnie stayed in Atlanta, Geoff went back to his hometown of Opelousas, and Steve moved to New Orleans and enrolled at UNO. “I was so burned out,” he said, “I didn’t pick up a guitar for nine years.” It appeared Bas Clas was finished.
Then in 2002, the band was asked to play the annual Medicine Show benefit, a fundraiser for an endowment fund at University of Louisiana, Lafayette, in honor of the late Tommy
Comeaux. And the overwhelming response of the crowd rekindled the fever to play again. “We started playing a couple of gigs a year,” Donnie Picou said. “It was hard, because we
were living in different parts of the South. But we found a way to get it done when we could.”
In 2008, Bas Clas was invited to play with Po’ Boy Rufus at Downtown Alive. And the band played the “before” party for Festival International at Blue Moon in 2011. The band had a desire to play at the Festival but needed a current release in order to be considered. Donnie had a relationship with Steve Nails at Dockside Studios in Maurice, and the band made the decision to go in and record. Ted Cobena returned, and the band invited other friends to help. “We had always been a three guitars and a drummer band,” Donnie said. “We wanted a keyboardist but could never afford one,” he said, laughing.
But for their first Dockside session, well-known South Louisiana musicians like Dickie Landry, Eric Adcock, David Greeley, Mitch Reed, Roddie Romero and Christine Balfa joined Bas Clas in the studio. The result was “Big Oak Tree,” released in 2012, their first commercial release in nearly thirty years. “The response to ‘Big Oak Tree’ was outstanding,” Donnie said. “Some of those tunes, like ‘Allons Danser’ and ‘My Louisiane’ were written a while back. But with the help of the guest musicians, the music wound up sounding just as I had imagined when I wrote them.”
The band recommitted to getting into the studio. “We wanted something new out every year, but it wound up being every other year,” Donnie said. Their second foray, the seven-song EP “Love, Food, Sex, Peace” was released in 2014. By that time, Bas Clas had been named to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame during a performance at the Grant Street Dance Hall in 2013. “That took us totally by surprise. Needless to say, we were incredibly honored.”
The band continued to live in different states but always found time to gather at Dockside to record. “I love playing live music, but the studio is really where I feel most at home,” Donnie
said. “The creativity seems to flow when we’re at Dockside.” “In Wonderland,” a nine-song collection, was released in early 2016, and that summer the band was looking forward to recording their next group of songs.
Then came the flood of 2016. Between the flood and the backlog of musicians waiting to record at Dockside, Bas Clas was unable to get their next CD recorded in a timely manner. But the band continued to play a couple of times a year. Eunice native David Nezat joined on drums, and they were scheduled to play at Downtown Alive on March 27, 2020.
Then COVID-19 shut everything down. “Meteorite,” the band’s latest CD was released in March of this year with an accompanying video as well. Bas Clas can’t wait to get back to Dockside to record more songs. “I don’t know which I’m looking forward to more: getting in the studio or playing in front of crowds. Hopefully by this fall, we’ll do both,” Donnie said.
(All Bas Clas music is available for download at basclas.bandcamp.com and also available on streaming sites such as Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify and iTunes.)