Meet The Savants of Soul, Destination Okeechobee winners and the festival’s newest performers

After High Dive’s epic Battle of the Bands, The Savants of Soul emerged as fan favorite and earned their spot on the Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival lineup in one short week.

The Battle of the Bands marked the second round of the Destination Okeechobee competition, in which six qualifying bands played their hearts out for what seemed to many like the largest crowd that High Dive has ever seen. The huge crowd and the energy of competition put extra life into The Savants of Soul, whose performance exploded on the stage.

“That was one of the most intense audiences, and the whole band just brought it,” said frontman Justin McKenzie. “After our first break in song, the audience roar was deafening. You know, we’ve played several shows with crowds that big, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bigger roar than that.”

The Savants of Soul are a Gainesville staple, bringing their modern Motown sound to the forefront of the local music scene and garnering quite a following in their nearly seven years of existence.

In 2011, John Gray Shermyen, a lifelong soul fanatic, convinced his roommate Alex Klausner to start a soul band. The Savants, as they were known at the time, was born. While the band was still in its conceptual phase, Klausner reached out to Justin McKenzie, offering him the role of lead singer.

“I was kind of waiting for them to ask me,” McKenzie said. “It was a bunch of, you know, white dudes playing soul. When are they going to ask their only black friend? They did. I joined, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.”

Up until about a year before joining The Savants of Soul, McKenzie was playing guitar in a Gainesville ska band called Chupaskabra. Joining The Savants of Soul was McKenzie’s first dive into the genre. While he’d enjoyed the Motown classics before, McKenzie said the extensive musical study the band did refined his love of the sound.

This study, McKenzie said, is what has allowed the group to capture the spirit of soul and Motown without simply repeating the past. The group draws inspiration from the music of the past but incorporates modern influences to create something new yet nostalgic.

“It’s not just an audio thing; it’s a visual thing. It gets people really into the groove,” McKenzie said. “We’re not just like the bands that were around in the ’60s and ’70s, but I think we do it justice. If nothing else, we bring the same amount of energy.”

Visual, indeed. In addition to their retro sound, The Savants of Soul are known for their iconic stage presence. The band is always found dressed to the nines: suits, ties and often sunglasses. Most iconic of all is McKenzie’s look.

At front and center stage, McKenzie, a big guy with a big afro, roars out his vocals in a baby blue, polyester bell-bottom suit his brother brought home from a garage sale when McKenzie was in his early teens. While the choice to make it part of his performance wardrobe was spontaneous, the suit has become one of the most recognizable images in Gainesville music.

Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival will take place from March 1 to 4. Although The Savants of Soul’s timeslot is yet to be announced, tickets are still available at okeechobeefest.com/tickets/ga/.

Destination Okeechobee