Submitted Photo Members of Uncle Ben’s Remedy are pictured from left to right: Brendan O’Connor, Harmony Griffin, Ben Westlund, Shawn Huestis, and Josh Mullin.

VERSAILLES — Friday is the day when popular local band Uncle Ben’s Remedy releases its latest album. A six-track record titled “Saturday Night Swindle” will be available on all major streaming platforms beginning Friday.

Saturday Night Swindle is the sixth album the group has produced in 10 years, and it was all done locally at Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Road Studios in Arkwright. To celebrate its latest achievement, the band is hosting a release show on Saturday at the Versailles Community Hall. The event kicks off at 5:55 p.m., and will run until 11:20 Saturday.

“This has been an emotional record to produce,” said Shawn Huestis, a multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the band. “We just thank our lucky stars we can still do this after all these years.”

Huestis is the band’s utilitarian member, playing everything from the keyboard to the accordion and trombone. He described how the latest album is a culmination of years of perseverance by the band through what he described as “an emotional roller coaster.”

Before the album was released, the band welcomed a new drummer after its decade-long partner, Jim Royce, stepped away due to tinnitus.

“It was devastating for all of us,” Huestis said. Josh Mullin filled his spot in the band and did “a bang up job” taking over.

But that was not the only health related hurdle the band had to push forward through, as its sound technician and driver, Dan Curtin, battled cancer. He is now cancer free, and he received support from the “U.B. Army” along the way through a fundraising event in his honor in February.

“Thousands of people showed up for him,” Huestis said. “It just spoke to the true nature of what we do.”

Uncle Ben’s Remedy released its first album, Yesterday’s Clothes, in 2014. Ten years later, the band is still at it, writing its own songs, led by frontman Ben Westlund.

The band started out without major aspirations, as Huestis said they were all content with just being a local bar band. Quickly they discovered that their original songs, mostly written by Westlund, took off. Huestis said that pushed the group to market itself as “campfire music with a rock and roll energy.”

Uncle Ben’s Remedy found immediate success after releasing its first album. The band won the Summer 2014 Battle of the Bands at the Canalside Concert Series in Buffalo. That success was followed by winning the 2015 Battle of Original Music (BOOM) competition. Uncle Ben’s Remedy began playing at various festivals in 2017, including the Sportsmen’s Americana Festival and the Great Blue Heron Music Festival. The band was also a finalist in the national Taste of Country Riser contest.

“The business aspect of it never stops. There’s no resting on our laurels, there’s only building on what we’ve grown in the past. If we don’t continue growing, if we don’t continue working, it all goes away,” Huestis said.

Even as a founding member and a lead songwriter, “Uncle Ben” Westlund did not initially want his name attached to the band. Huestis said, “It wasn’t a vanity project for him.”

But at the time, Huestis joked that the band didn’t have any better names in mind, so Westlund eventually came around. He was not yet an uncle in reality, but that came true a few years later.

Huestis is a native of Panama. Westlund is from Versailles, as is Harmony Griffin, the band’s guitarist. Brendan O’Connor, the bass player, is from Long Island, and Mullin, the drummer, is from Buffalo. The group of New York natives have expanded their circle throughout the state and beyond as the U.B. Army has grown over the past decade.

“We’ve met thousands of people throughout the decade who have become lifelong acquaintances through music,” Huestis said.

The band’s latest album just adds to its already successful tenure in the music industry.

“The main takeaway from the past decade is that chemistry, friendship, and fanship tower over everything else. If we can maintain our sense of family, there’s nothing that can beat what we do,” Huestis said.

Saturday Night Swindle will be available for streaming and download on Friday on all of the major streaming and download sites, including Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, and Google Music. Vinyl and CDs can be purchased at Saturday’s show and online at unclebensremedy.com