Anthony Bambino went from shredding to swinging.

Bambino leads the Rock This Town Orchestra, which plays the music of the Brian Setzer Orchestra and the Stray Cats, but it includes other swing era standards and early rock and rockabilly favorites.

The band replaces Louis Prima Jr. and the Witnesses, which had to cancel as the final attraction of the Warren Civic Music Association’s 2024-25 season.

The music the Rock This Town Orchestra will perform tonight at Packard Music Hall is a far cry from the hair metal Bambino played when he was the lead guitar player for Spoiled Rotten and was endorsing guitar products in ads that ran in Guitar World magazine.

Spoiled Rotten was signed to RCA Records in the late ’80s, but like many bands in the hair metal genre, it lost its record deal as grunge grew in popularity in the early ’90s.

Bambino didn’t pay much attention to the Stray Cats when it was leading a rockabilly revival in the early ’80s and getting lots of play on MTV.

He was listening to bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who his father introduced him to, or guitar shredders like Eddie Van Halen.

When Setzer was showing up on radio and in commercials playing “Jump, Jive & Wail” in the late ’90s, he assumed it was an original song by Setzer and not a Louis Prima original written more than 40 years earlier. A friend lent him a Brian Setzer Orchestra CD, but he never got around to listening to it.

Post-Spoiled Rotten, Bambino made a living playing in top 40 cover bands. By the mid-2000s, he was tired of that music and started playing jazz guitar, which he studied in college. He also finally gave the Brian Setzer Orchestra a listen.

“I put it in, and my mouth just hit the floor,” he said. “I think it was just the right time in my life … It’s not really gratifying as a musician to play top 40 all the time. I think because I was schooled, I had a degree in jazz guitar, I had so much more knowledge under my fingers, and I wanted to apply it and learn more. I heard that album, and my jaw dropped. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is exactly what I was looking for.’ It was like someone gave me a present.”

Bambino’s “orchestra” started out as a trio, just like the Stray Cats, but they also played some of the BSO songs with that configuration as well.

“Obviously, it sounded empty, but we were still learning them and figuring out who was going to sing,” he said. “I got lucky. His range and his tonality fit my voice really well. We went out as a trio, and I started getting some charts arranged. ‘Well, I gotta find horn players.’ That took a little trial and error, finding the right vibe, the right guys and so forth. And I’ve been fortunate now that the show really took off.”

Rock This Town does four different types of shows, including playing as a three piece focused on Stray Cats and rockabilly, a Brian Setzer Orchestra tribute and a Christmas show that echoes Setzer’s annual holiday tours.

The likely set in Warren will be a show Bambino calls “Swingin’ Through the ’50s and ’60s.”

“We do a set playing all the Stray Cats hits, then I take all the B sides out and add in a couple of Sinatra songs, Bobby Darin songs, you know, ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ “Mack the Knife.’ Then we may do ‘Great Balls of Fire,’ Richie Valens, Bill Haley and the Comets.

“I read my demographic. If we’re going in a room where the average age is 75 to 85, I take out what I would call the harder edge stuff and bring in the slower stuff. It’s just whatever fits the room and the demographic.”

Bambino said he believes the older audience appreciates musicianship more than the younger generation.

“They’re not really into music the way we were back in the day, and if they are, they want to hear top 40,” he said.

The orchestra will be a seven-piece band for tonight’s show with guitar, upright bass and drums along with a four-piece horn section. And Bambino said the show has reawakened his passion for performing.

“If I didn’t find this music, I don’t know if I’d be playing live anymore,” he said. “I’ve been playing live for 30 years. In the late ’80s, early ’90s, we were playing five nights a week. After a while, if you play the same style, you get bored of it. But this is like a newfound love, and I’m so deep into it.”

If you go …

WHAT: Warren Civic Music Association — Rock This Town Orchestra

WHEN: 7 p.m. today

WHERE: Packard Music Hall, 1703 Mahoning Ave NW, Warren

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $45 and will be available at the door before the show.