The group of friends who used to play as The Ward are getting the band back together for a reunion show at Dave’s Dark Horse Tavern Friday night.
“The band began in 2005 in Oxford,” said Lucas Leigh, The Ward’s keyboard player.
The Ward used to perform in Starkville and other surrounding areas a couple years ago, but gradually drifted apart and moved to different cities, Leigh said.
The original band members were Leigh, bass player Ross Parker, drummer Jeremy Ward and guitarist Jessie Cole, he said.
Leigh moved to Nashville and plays country music, Parker moved to Birmingham and works as a sales operations manager for AT&T and Ward is in Jackson working as a mortician in a funeral home.
Cole moved to Los Angeles and will not be able to make it back for the show, so Kent Moss will play guitar Friday night, Leigh said.
“We’re pumped up about [the show] and having a new guitar player, it’s great,” he said.
The band started when Leigh, Parker and Ward played in a Widespread Panic tribute band, Farmer’s Soul, together, Ward said.
“Our keyboard player moved to Los Angeles and somehow, I don’t really know how, we got Lucas,” he said.
A year and a half after Farmer’s Soul broke apart, Parker and Ward joined up with a member of Mayhem String Band, but the sound wasn’t right, Ward said.
“Ross and I were itching to play,” he said.
They found Leigh and started The Ward with piano, drums and bass and found Cole to play guitar, he said.
“We were trying to come up with a name, and my buddy Ross came up with it,” Ward said. “I would have never named it after myself.”
Ward said he associated the naming of the band with the ninth ward in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina since it happened around the time the band formed.
“I always thought of an insane asylum type of ward [as well],” he said.
The goal of the show is to have a good time, bring back great memories and make sure people have a great time, he said.
The music is a mix of rock, jazz and improvisational music, Ward said.
“It’s very catchy with a little taste of funk with a little jazz,” Parker said. “It’s pure heat to me. That’s the way I describe it.”
Members of The Ward love to play together because they get to play their original music, he said.
“It’s so easy for a lot of bands to play their own music,” Parker said.
The guys were all friends outside of the band and now that they live close near each other they can try to play together again, he said.
“It’s important to me just to get back together with all the guys,” Parker said.
Ward said Dave’s Dark Horse Tavern is an important place to the band because tavern owner Dave Hood always gave new artists a chance to get up and play their own music.
“Dave always trusted [us] and let us play,” he said.
The Ward contacted Hood and asked if it could play this weekend because the members could all travel, Hood said.
“The Ward used to be a regular band on the Tavern stage until they placed greater distances between themselves. Now we’re lucky to get them back in here once or twice a year,” he said.
Leigh said he hopes the crowd’s energy at Dave’s is the same as he remembers and that people remember them.
“We could just play there every month and I’d be happy,” Leigh said.
Singer-songwriter Korby Lenker will open for the Ward at 9 p.m. and The Ward will take the stage at 10 p.m. Cover will be $5.