How often do you hear the guys mired in the background of a rock band say something like, “My job in this band is to make the lead singer really famous”? Has the bassist for Matchbox 20 ever come out and say, “I just want my basslines to help Rob Thomas’ effervescent voice transcend the rest of this band”? Not likely. These kind of sentiments don’t exist, for the most part, because the accepted etiquette for rockers is that, no matter how the media might spin it, all the parts are equal.

Not for a soul band. Even thirty years removed the heyday of R&B, Nashville’s The Dynamites prove that soul music still revolves around one figure: the charismatic frontman.  Guitarist Bill Elder (a.k.a. Leo Black) serves as The Dynamites main songwriter, principal arranger and producer. By all accounts, this band is his baby. Yet when he starts talking about his project, every topic comes back to one thing: the lead singer, 68-year-old frontman Charles Walker, a semi-legend of the soul scene who opened for the likes of Etta James and James Brown back in the sixties when funk was just being forged.

“The goal of this kinda thing, and when you watch the old James Brown shows, or any of the soul revues, it all is about the front person,” Elder says. “The whole reason we do anything is to provide a real solid foundation for Charles to deliver from. And I guess it would be my goal that the band is just kinda there. It’s a really heavy hittin’ band, but when Charles is on the stage, our job is to make people walk away from the show thinking of him, not us.”

With a frontman persona that Elder describes as “a marriage between Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and James Brown,” Walker shines on the band’s debut album, 2007’s “Kaboom!”  Elder is spot on: while the staccato horns and the Bootsy Collins-esque bass grooves could burn through walls, the songs subsist on Walker’s ability to steal the spotlight, to unleash his voice like a wild (yet incredibly smooth) animal from a cage. And while Walker aptly handles the hook of the album, which clearly intends to pay homage to as many different types of the soul/funk era as possible, for the band’s upcoming record, Elder intends on focusing on his frontman’s strengths.

“Part of me just wants to keep checking those off, do a couple more albums of: ‘OK, this is my Lee Dorsey song, this is my Bobby Byrd, this is my Kool and the Gang,’” Elder says. “And that’s cool to do that, but I think there’s gonna be a little bit less of that, because I know where Charles really shines now, and I think it’s going to be a lot heavier in the classic soul.”

While the classic soul shift entails a few more ballads than before, Elder reassures that the next record—and the live show—will still include some “funkburners.” Needless to say, performances include a healthy amount of sweat.

“Having Charles up there, if he can stand up there and do it night after night, the other cats better be able to hang with him,” he says. “Fatigue is not really something that’s allowed.” (Andy Seifert)

January 24 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508. 10:30pm. $12-$15.