Premiere: Ben Labat & The Happy Devil

Heading "Homeward"

Jerry Martin, Ben Labat, Travis Lovell, David Guidry
(Photo: Misty Leigh McElroy)

Life is what you make it. Ben Labat has had one band’s future end in a car wreck and suffered a second major loss when his manager/producer/mentor died in a freak onstage accident, but he named his new group Ben Labat & The Happy Devil, and life goes on.

The group’s new Americana album, Homeward, underlines Labat’s Louisiana roots, and refers back to his life both in and out of music: roofer, father, husband, oil-rig roustabout, survivor. About the title track, Labat told Elmore: “’Homeward’ is about what I thought was important then, wasn’t really important at all. The title is pretty self-explanatory, even though the idea of “Homeward” is relative: working on oil rigs and coming home to see family, finding yourself, dying, etc. All those elements are touched on in this song.”