With its recent album release, The Mike Renick Band continues to impress

Mike Renick is a happy guy.

After having released four previous CDs as the frontman and acoustic guitarist for the Mike Renick Band, Renick said the band's new CD was worth the effort.

"As a whole, I'm happy with the CD from beginning to end," he said. "From the production to the songwriting, I think it's a good one."

The recently released CD, simply titled "Mike Renick Band," contains six original songs plus a hidden bonus track that Renick said is already receiving positive feedback.

"There have been good responses so far," he said. "Two songs, ‘Brother John' and ‘Saying All The Right Things,' are playing on Rage 103.7 at Southeast Missouri State."

The album art for the Mike Renick Band's new self-titled album. This is the band's fifth album. (ADAM VOGLER ~ avogler@semissourian.com)

Renick and various incarnations of the Mike Renick Band have been a fixture on the local music scene since 2004.

Along with Renick, the lineup currently consists of Ian Bolton on lead guitar, Drew Koeppel on bass guitar, Wes Grabel on saxophone and Bryan West on drums.

"Things aren't getting old anytime soon while I'm playing with these guys," Renick said. "It's a lot of fun being around them."

The band often performs in venues such as Rude Dog Pub, Mixing 10 and Isle Casino Cape Girardeau, but sometimes they hit the road to play gigs in St. Louis or other out-of-town venues.

"We'll travel to play private parties," Renick said, "but it depends on how things fall. We'll be playing in Columbia [Mo.] in December."

Mike Renick performs onstage with his acoustic guitar. (ADAM VOGLER ~ avogler@semissourian.com)

Renick's day job consists of being the operations manager of Mississippi River Radio LLC and an on-air personality for 93.9 "The River" from 2 to 7 p.m. Such a schedule precludes a lot of travel time for his band, but Renick said they always make time to practice on Tuesday nights.

"We practice for a couple of hours," he said. "It's a time to work on new music and to improve things. It might be a guitar riff that I've been working on and I'll bring it to practice. I'm always trying to introduce new stuff."

The introduction of "new stuff" is important to Renick, because he doesn't want his band to become just another cover band.

"There's nothing wrong with covering songs," he said, "We do it occasionally, but the focus is on original music. We can't just play songs that have already been covered about 10,000 times."

Renick said that the genre of music that the Mike Renick Band plays isn't easy to describe.

"The music we play aren't standard rock songs," he said. "There's a certain rock feel to them, but, for instance, some may have a blues sound. People have given us different descriptions of how we sound, and I like that."

The sound of his band, Renick's musical influences are also varied.

"My dad was into Motown music," he said, "and it was always on in the house. I still like it, but over time listening habits change. I'd say I'm a fan of good music, whether it's The Police, Red Hot Chili Peppers or Peter Gabriel. So long as it's good, I'll listen to it."

Renick said previous CDs released by the Mike Renick Band contain music that remains a staple of their live performances.

"We like the music we've made," he said. "Songs from prior CDs like ‘Stuck On You' and ‘Lucky One' still get played."

The band's new CD can be purchased locally at Hastings Entertainment, PMac Music and West Bank Bistro. It can also be downloaded from iTunes.

"I hope people will enjoy listening to it and also appreciate the work that goes into making a CD. The recording process can be tedious at times."

klewis@semissourian.com

388-3635