Sin City Sinners cover old, new rock

Todd Kerns and Brent Muscat, a couple of well-established musicians, were just fooling around when they started jamming with other musicians at the Divebar on Tuesday nights.

A bunch of guys from other bands would get together to have a “loose, fun night,” Kerns says, and that usually meant making musical asses of themselves. Then a representative from Wasted Space at the Hard Rock Hotel heard them and their jam band became a bona fide performing band with gigs. That was about three years ago, Kerns says, and Sin City Sinners currently plays at several venues around town. Their sound is everything from old rock to current music, as well as the original music of Kerns and Muscat.

On Saturdays at Ovation lounge in Green Valley Ranch, a guest performer joins them onstage. Tiffany and members of Kiss and the Stray Cats have performed with them.

Kerns moved to Las Vegas from Canada three years ago, leaving behind a long recording career. The plan was to stay for a couple of months and help Muscat make a record.

Las Vegas, he says, has been good to him, and he is not inclined to leave anytime soon.

He picked up the guitar when he was 11 or 12, growing up in a small Canadian town where you either played hockey or did nothing. Kerns found other like-minded musicians and started down a path that he’s never left.

“It’s been interesting for me,” Kerns says. “These three years I’ve been here has been the longest stretch of time where I’ve slept in the same bed since I was a kid. At first it was unnerving, but now it’s become really comfortable.”

Sin City Sinners play from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays at Boulder Station and Saturdays at Green Valley Ranch; from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Tuesdays at Voodoo Lounge in the Rio; and from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Thursdays at Wasted Space in the Hard Rock Hotel.

— By SONYA PADGETT