Bringing to the stage a show reminiscent of The Who and the Rolling Stones, mixed with an indie-rock, blues and funk element, England’s Little Barrie officially made their Madison debut at the High Noon Saloon. The band was the opening act for soulman, Charles Bradley, who, with his guitarist’s suggestion, invited them to go on tour with him in the U.S. after playing together in Spain.

Little Barrie is a nickname that front man Barrie Cadogan got from a friend’s dad when he was growing up in Nottingham that just stuck with him, and eventually made its way to becoming the name of the band.

Cadogan’s friend Miles, who now has studio in Nottingham, played the organ and engineered the first record in 2000, which was actually a demo with Cadogan and a couple of his friends before the actual band was formed. They started playing shows in 2001 and started touring around 2003.

Their debut album, “We Are Little Barrie,” was released in 2005.

“I wanted to do something that had a kind of soul and funk element,” Cadogan said. His vision for the band shows through in their music along with blues and indie-rock. The music does do a great job of what the band really wants it to do, and that is to get people out on the floor and dance.

Inspiration for their music comes from just about everywhere, especially other sources of music.

“We’re into lots of different music, and I think we sort of inspire each other as well. It’s just the energy of playing together,” Cadogan said.

Virgil Howe, the son of Yes guitarist Steve Howe, joined Cadogan and bassist, Lewis Wharton in 2008 as their drummer. This new combination produced their most recent album, “King of the Waves,” which has already seen success and received great reviews in the U.K., and was just released in the U.S.

“We wanted to do a harder hitting album then what we’ve done before. Try and get more of the energy of the band,” Cadogan said. The new album does have some more energy behind it than their previous ones, and the success it’s had is rewarding to the hard work that went into it.

Little Barrie is working on their first tour in the U.S. after huge success in Japan. “King of the Waves” skyrocketed all the way up to the number-two spot on Amazon’s main album chart there. Their success was also enough to land them an eight-page photo spread in the Japanese Rolling Stone.

“It’s just amazing we got to go out their, cause a lot of people from Britain never get to go there,” Cadogan said. Airfare from London to Tokyo is not cheap, especially with all of the gear a band on the road has to take with them.

Little Barrie is looking to do work on a movie soundtrack, along with new albums and more tours, especially in the states. At the end of this tour, they’ll spend about a week in New York, throw some ideas around and feel things out a little bit. They’ve been way too busy lately to make any definite decisions.

“We’ve been touring so much, we haven’t had time really to get stuck into it,” Cadogan said. “We’d love to do more stuff over here. The response has been good so far.”

Little Barrie kept the crowd thoroughly entertained throughout their show at the High Noon Saloon on Feb. 15. They really got the crowd going with Rolling Stones-like energy and a unique indie-rock sound.

After their set was over things like “those guys were awesome” and “I’m definitely going to see them again” could be heard from members of the crowd.