Ashley Red puts DJ spin on lounge tunes

The four-man band, originally founded in Memphis by vocalist Cass Cates, "basically does what a DJ would do, but we bust it out with a full rock band. It’s a high energy wall of sound that’s really good," Cates says. "It’s basically like if you were to take all of the top 40 stuff and redo everything and give it a dance vibe."

It’s taken Cates a few years and 30 or so musicians to get where the band is today, with bass player Thor Jettesen, John Kurimai on drums and Hector Rios on guitar. The band, whose members moved to Vegas two months ago, had established itself in Memphis, Cates says. In 2005, they entered a Budweiser True Music contest and won for their district.

The band members already had decided they needed to move somewhere new to pursue music as a full-time job. So on the night of the contest, they took a map onstage and threw a dart at it. The agreement was to move wherever the dart landed, Cates says. It landed on West Palm Beach, Fla.

"It couldn’t have been planned better," Cates says.

Two weeks later, they moved to Florida, and the band’s profile quickly picked up. They entered and won a contest to open for Bon Jovi, then were selected to play on an episode of MTV’s "My Super Sweet 16."

By 2009, they felt as though they had conquered the music scene in Florida, so they packed up and moved to Los Angeles. The plan was to split their time between L.A. and Las Vegas, Cates says.

That’s when they changed their sound from a rock band to what Cates calls a club rock format. Instead of playing straight interpretations of cover songs, like most lounge bands do, they approached the musical arrangements the way a DJ does, mixing sounds and adding their own to the show.

Ashley Red performs from 9 to 11:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Rocks Lounge in Red Rock Resort, 11011 W. Charleston Blvd.

— By SONYA PADGETT