“Wolf! was born from a need to just play music—to get the blood flowing,” says guitarist Scott Metzger about his new instrumental trio. “We do it to stay in shape creatively, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.”

[All photos by Scott Bernstein]

With a busy schedule of stage and studio work with people like Anders Osborne, Stanton Moore, Kelli Scarr, Erik Deutsch, Adam Levy, Eric McFadden, and Jason Crosby, Metzger has enjoyed taking over bandleader duties.

“Playing with and becoming friends with these musicians has influenced this music and given me the confidence to go out and front a guitar trio playing the kind of music I have always wanted to play,” says Metzger. “That’s where it’s at.”

Wolf! allows Metzger to show a musical side that fans of his more rock-oriented bands like Bustle in Your Hedgerow, Some Cat From Japan, RANA, and the Gene Ween Band might not have seen before.

“In Wolf!, we play country, boogaloo, soul, blues, western swing, and more,” says Metzger. “It’s all music I’ve always played in my living room or rehearsal space but never in public.” The band proudly wears its influences on its collective sleeve, not attempting to fool anyone. “We’re definitely old school kinda guys,” explains Metzger.

READ ON for more on Wolf! and to download studio tracks…

The influential NYC-Freaks e-mail list – which has helped launch the careers of Robert Randolph, The Duo and the American Babies, among others – will celebrate 11 years of connecting friends, sharing information and tastemaking at Freaks Ball XI on February 4th. This year’s Freaks Ball will be held at Brooklyn Bowl, aka our staff’s favorite NYC venue, and boasts a lineup featuring post-rock duo El Ten Eleven, Hendrix tribute act Some Cat From Japan, DJ Cochon de Lait and instrumental guitar trio Wolf!.

Gutiarist Scott Metzger makes his ninth straight appearance at the Freaks Ball in 2011 and appears with two acts – Some Cat and Wolf!. Scott raved about Wolf! during his interview with me for a recent Relix Man At Work article, saying the band has a “’60s boogaloo kind of feel to it,” while the guest-laden Some Cat From Japan set on Jam Cruise was among the best of the trip.

NYC-Freaks founder Aaron Stein describes El Ten Eleven as “the perfect Freaks Ball band — you can get up front and move to it, hang back, sip your drink and bob your head to it, stand there in awe with a ‘how the F do they do that?’ to it or just let it float through the background of your party.”

Fittingly, tickets for Freaks Ball XI cost $11 and will be available soon.