Wordsauce is a six-piece RockNFlow band, founded in 2009 in San Luis Obispo, CA. Members include Wesley Price (bass), Bill Gerhardt (drums), Risko (vocals/production), Kevin Strong (guitar), Shawn Warnke (guitar), and Samuel Franklin (saxophone and keys). Over the years, Wordsauce has developed their own brand of live band hip hop with instrumentation rooted in funk, mixed with a vocal style that balances intensely rhythmic lyrical form with catchy melodies. Their first full-length album, The Flow (2015), exhibited the broad spectrum of influences within the group. Where The Flow had many rock and roll undertones, their second album, Juice, expanded on the influences of funk, RnB, and soul. Their third full length release, Timeless, was released in summer of 2022 and is considered to be their best work yet. Wordsauce has performed at a number of notable festivals such as High Sierra Music Festival, Live Oak Music Festival, Surf Rodeo, Big Surreal, and more. They have shared the stage with the likes of Jurrassic 5, Bone Thugz n Harmony, Del the Funky Homosapien, Freddie Gibbs, The Motet, Turkuaz, Soul Scratch, and many others.
Wordauce’s latest release, Timeless, exhibits a stylistic development in what is best described as RockNFlow—a form of music containing elements from a spectrum of genres. Emcee/singer, Risko, blends rap and melodic styles more simultaneously on Timeless than on previous albums, where the two forms were more separated between verse and chorus deliveries.
With another album in the works, Wordsauce is excited to build off the advancement of the sound achieved in Timeless. After twelve years of making music together, they are locking in on a production flow that utilizes their home base, The Sauce Pot Studios. There, they are able to have full tracking sessions regularly to develop and produce new material. In the past, the band has taken extended periods of time following an album release before getting back in the studio. However, with many works in progress left off Timeless, they are keeping the iron hot and believe their best music is ahead of them.
Members
- Rick “Risko” Loughman – vocals
- Billy G – drums
- Wesley Price – bass
- Kevin Strong – guitar
- Shawn Warnke – guitar
- Sam Franklin – sax and keys