ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – Damon Motto is pretty much the quiet one of the six-member Gravy Flavored Kisses. And as the classically trained bassist toils away giving the group impeccable bottom, he can’t help but grin at the antics of trombonist Curtis Laub.

“Curtis is a rock star,” Motto says. “He gets sounds out of that horn that you wouldn’t expect from a trombone. I’m just afraid he’s going to rock so hard one day that he’s going to hurt himself or one of us.”

Laub leans and sways into solos, stomps his feet, jumps straight in the air and even raps sometimes in addition to producing stunning sounds.

“My favorite is when he rides his trombone like a cowboy,” Motto said. “I love seeing the crowd’s reaction to him and his energy rubs off on the rest of us.”

The energetic and diverse sounds of Gravy Flavored Kisses is just one of many bands slated for Happy Harbor’s annual PirateFest starting Thursday night. The festival, in its fourth year, is at the Happy Harbor is on Marina Road in Orange Beach.

An outstanding lineup includes headliners Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Grayson Capps and Lost Cause Minstrels on Saturday and Rollin in the Hay and George Porter Jr & The Runnin Pardners on Sunday.

The Gravy Flavored Kisses take the stage at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Trombonist Laub says the songs written by founding member, guitarist and singer Jared Castellaw call for energy on stage.

“I think that activity is kind of demanded by the songs Jared comes up with,” Laub said. “They are so high energy and intense that if I didn’t breathe like crazy and jump up and down, I wouldn’t be able to make it through the tunes. Plus it’s just fun to go nuts.”

The group started when Castellaw was looking for an outlet for all the songs he has been compulsively writing for years. Most of the songs the group performs are his originals.

“Finally, right around my 24th birthday I just couldn’t take it anymore,” the 27-year-old Castellaw said. “I had been good friends with Damon for a few years, and we had talked music a good bit, and I knew he was a classically trained bassist. I just asked him one day if he would be down to start a band with me. He said yes, and so we found a drummer immediately and started playing.”

Eventually the permanent drummer turned out to be Adam Baumol and another supremely talented musician was added to the lineup.

“I think that once Adam joined things started really tightening up,” Castellaw said. “His depth of compositional knowledge has really proven to be important for us in terms of arrangements. That’s in addition to being a freaking boss drummer. It was after he joined that I really started to feel strongly that this is something that could be very good and that maybe had some broader appeal.”

Castellaw says the group not only has talent at each position, they are playing better together with each practice or performance.

“We’ve become more and more comfortable playing with each other and so it’s just getting tighter and tighter,” he said. “We’re able to just feel each other really well and on a lot of open sections of songs we just kind of vibe and know what’s going to happen next. I think that we are still improving too, which is a good thing.”

To round out the sound, trumpeter Brandon Britt was added to the horn section and Jinyoung Park was added as a vocalist to give the band its current lineup. Britt sometimes has to miss gigs because of his commitment with the U.S. Navy band.

“Brandon adds tasty flourishes to riffs and I can’t help but smile when he belts out a dope solo,” Motto said. “He gives us a little bit of that Kentucky flavor.

“Jinyoung has the ability to melt hearts and drop jaws. She has the versatility to put a lot of soul on slower songs, belt out over bluesy riffs, and everything in between.”

Park says it’s hard for her to describe the feeling of playing in Gravy Flavored Kisses.

“I think the smile on my face when I’m on stage with these guys tells you a lot more than what I can tell you with words,” Park said.

Motto offered high praise for all his bandmates.

“Jared can really rock the bejesus out of a guitar solo,” Motto said. “His vocals are gritty and grimy and I love it. Adam lays down solid beats and has impeccable timing. He can lay down a groove that gets everyone from age 8 to 80 dancing. I’ve seen it.”

Castellaw likes the sound that has evolved with this lineup.

“We had a run there where we were getting into some real heavy riffs, and you know, when you have a great thick beat, a five-string bass hitting the low tones, an overdriven dirty electric guitar, a trombone and trumpet all slamming a heavy riff, it just feels really great,” he said.

The diversity brings forth a complete sound as well, Castellaw said. And has changed his approach to writing songs.

“I think that kind of having a standard instrumentation in this band with the drums, bass, guitar, trombone, trumpet, male and female vocals has for me sort of, altered how I view something when I’m writing,” he said. “I’m writing a lot with the whole band in mind versus taking something in that’s just a guitar and vocals and going from there.”