Tag Archives: Music.

March 10, 2019 · 6:52 pm

Ruston Kelly Shares His Story At Workplay On Saturday.

Ruston Kelly’s career began with a BMG publishing deal in 2013. He had cuts on records by Tim McGraw, Josh Abbott Band and Hayes Carll before releasing his first EP of his own, Halloween, in 2017.

Dying Star was one of 2018’s brightest moments in Americana. Kelly calls the debut EP the prologue to his story, while the first full-length serves as chapter one. As the audience jumps into chapter one, it finds Kelly recovering from drug addiction by withholding none of the failures that came with it; “Blackout” and “Faceplant” are songs about just that.

In the music video for “Son of a Highway Daughter,” Kelly earnestly figure skates; a skill that he perfected through six years of intense training. He once fancied himself an Olympian before discovering his penchant for songwriting. Ahead of his first headlining show in Birmingham, he talked about that background and how it led him to the guitar. He talked about what role music plays in his path to recovery, and he revealed that his favorite team is a familiar one to many of the people that will be in the audience on Saturday.

How did you transition your career from publishing into writing for yourself and doing your own thing?

I was somewhat strategic about it. Performing songs for people and making records…I knew that I was going to do that since I was a kid. I was also broke and needed some money. [laughs] That was step one. I felt like if I could get my foot in the door with someone like BMG, which, at the time was John Allen – he was the guy that signed me there – he was also responsible for discovering Ryan Adams. He knew what moves we were going to make. I had a few people act as quasi-managers for a while to help me figure some [expletive] out, send me to rehab and really take care of me and my career; help me to see what it is that I really wanted to do.

Lucie Silvas cut a version of a song that you recorded on Dying Star [“Just for the Record”]. How do you feel those versions compare and complement one another?

I think a good song is a good song no matter how you do it. And I think she does a great job at it. The melody and some of the initial words kind of came out of my mouth first, so to me, it’s a male song. So her version is cool to hear because it seems to be an alternate opinion or an alternate sentiment from a woman’s perspective. I think that’s pretty cool. I really like her version.

Kenny Chesney nearly cut another track on this record – “Trying to Let Her.” As you forge your own path, do you think that other people recording songs that you’ve written is also a path or is it now more about you doing your own thing?

If someone wants to record my song, they can go ahead and do it. I’ll always have my version of it and they can’t take that away from me. All that it’s really going to do, if it’s successful, is make me some money, and I’m not opposed to that [laughs]. That’s what we call “mailbox money.” I may not be in the business of writing songs for other people, but if I write a song and someone else wants to record it while I’m on tour, that’s great. When I come back home, there’s a check in the mail. I’m fine with that.

Kind of like that Spotify check?

Exactly.

Does writing and recording about your path to recovery make it easier to maintain or does it feel more like an obligation to help your audience find their own path?

That’s a good question. It’s the former, definitely. It took me a long time to figure out what it was that I wanted to do; more so, not “what,” but “how.” And I think substance abuse, for whatever reason, whether that was a mental imbalance or fear of this or fear of that – who knows what’s laying deep in the psyche that would make someone want to continually abuse themselves. It took me a little while to get my personal rhythm and balance right. What’s interesting is that art and creating art was always a way for me to understand myself and feel, I guess, safe in a lot of ways – to create to relieve. I wouldn’t say that it’s ironic, I would just say that it’s special that my first thing that I was saying to the world is that, and that my first fans are people that I’m assuming are getting the same relief from listening to it that I did from writing it. I think that’s a really special thing.

Who had the idea for the “Son of a Highway Daughter” video and were there ever reservations about how an earnest video like that would be received in Nashville?

[laughs] As far as how it was going to be received in Nashville, I could give two [expletive]. But when it comes to actually executing the video, it was actually Stephen Kinigopolous and Alexa King – the brother and sister team that have done all of my videos – it was their idea. I had brought up the fact that I really wanted to ice skate in a video. I’d always wanted to do that. But I wasn’t sure how to pull it off – it was like, should it be a joke? Should it be Will Ferrell a la Blades of Glory? That’s what it was going to be up until the day of the shoot. And then something was like, “I feel like if we’re going to do this, let’s do it like no one else has done this before. Let’s be really serious about it and give my best artistic, physical performance of this song.” And it was really challenging. I also quit smoking to do it because there’s no way I could do it while I was smoking.

Have you maintained that? Are you still off the cigarettes?

I still am off the cigs. I love cigarettes; I always will.

They’re amazing, right?

They are! I love ’em. I would try to quit before, and I’d say [expletive] like, “I don’t like cigarettes anymore.” Or, “They smell.” But really I do like cigarettes, and I do like the way they smell, I just can’t smoke ’em anymore.

I love the way someone smells when they’ve been smoking and it’s cold outside and it lingers…

Dude. Same. But I think we’re in the minority because I think most people think that smells like straight garbage.

Do you think Dierks Bentley ripped off the skating video for his tour promo?

[laughs] I don’t think he ripped it off. I’m not sure he’s aware enough of me, but I do know a lot of people commented on it. “You ripped Ruston off.” I’ve run into him a couple of times; but I wouldn’t even consider us colleagues. We’re in two different styles of music. I think he’s a genuine guy; I don’t think he’d purposely rip off anything. It’s probably an accident. Also, it’s kind of a funny thing to joke about – the play on masculinity and femininity when a guy ice skates – because it’s one of the most challenging sports in the world.

How long did you train as a figure skater and how far did you take the sport competitively?

I trained for – from the time I was eight until I was 14. So six years. I won competitions and [expletive]; regionals and I went to nationals. I went to Junior Olympics. I had aspirations to really be an Olympian and that’s what I was training for. Part of what was so exciting about skating was being able to physically move to music that moves you. I moved away from home to do it, and I moved in with a husband and wife Olympic coaching team. The wife was having an affair with one of her students, and they decided to tell me that first. It was weird and awkward. If you think the music business is [expletive] up, the skating world is extra [expletive] up.

So I started playing guitar out there and learning how to play guitar as a way to distract myself from being away from my family and also dealing with stuff that felt way above my maturity level. It forced me to grow up a bit. But it also taught me how to feel safe in a chaotic environment, whether that was of my own making or peripheral.

Your dad has played with you a lot, and I guess he’s on the record, too. Is working with someone that close to you easy?

Yes and no. It’s also my dad. There’s a lot of dad element; father/son types of things that we have to navigate that aren’t normal to have out in a working environment, especially not in a creative working environment. But I would say that overall, it’s so worth it. My sister also comes out and she’ll sing with me from time to time. When I step back in the middle of a song in front of a bunch of people and I’m looking over and I see my dad and my sister next to me, that’s something I wouldn’t trade for the world. It’s a really special thing.

At some point, you actually lived briefly in Alabama. What part of the state were you in and for how long?

I lived in Alabama – in Mobile – when I was young. We probably lived there a few years. My dad is partly from Alabama. His family is from Jackson, Alabama. We actually lived in Fairhope for a few years. I went to Spanish Fort Elementary School. I don’t know if this is faux pas or not, but we’re a Roll Tide family.

Are you actively an Alabama fan or it just a causal thing?

Yes, actively. My dad and his dad used to watch Alabama football when Bear Bryant was coaching. That was a family thing. We’d go to a game once a year. My dad started watching with my older brother and they would go to games. Then I started watching with them. Unfortunately, with touring I haven’t been able to keep that tradition alive, but I still stay up with it.

Have you made it down in recent years for a game?

Ahh, man. The last game I was able to go to was probably four years ago when they played Mississippi State and completely demolished them. My brother and dad…they went to one this past season.

What are the three best metal records of all time?

Oh, that’s a good question. I would say Slayer’s Reign in Blood is one. I would say The Great Southern Trendkill by Pantera is one. And then for the third, I would say The Apostacy by Behemoth was pretty good.

But I mean, I guess I feel like it would feel obligatory for me to say that Venom’s Black Metal is one of the best metal records ever because it helped defined an important subgenre of metal.

Chris Carrabba [of Dashboard Confessional] joined you for the show at the Basement East in Nashville. How did you guys meet and how did that collaboration happen?

He did. We had a mutual friend, and I actually met him when he did two nights at the Basement East. This was like two years ago before I knew I could sell any tickets; before I made Dying Star. We had a mutual friend that used to tour with Chuck Ragan who was a mutual friend of his, and we were like, “Oh, we should all write sometime.” So we just exchanged info, and Dying Star came out and he texted me out of the blue – we hadn’t talked in probably a year or so – and he was like, “Holy [expletive]. This is one of my top five inspiring records of all time. I would love to sit down and write with you.”

So I was like, “Well, I’m playing the Basement East in a few months. Why don’t you come sing ‘Mercury’ with me?” And he was like, “Holy [expletive]. I would be honored.” And I’m freaking out because I grew up listening to Dashboard; I learned how to play guitar, learned how to songwrite by listening to all of his records. For us to exchange compliments on the meaning of each other’s work was surreal.

Halloween worked as one connected story all the way through. It seemed like a very deliberate record. Even the skits moved the story forward. Do you enjoy crafting a record that way or is it more practical to choose your best work and put it all together as a collection?

No, I think you nailed it. I’ll always make records that are a story. I think that each record is going to be reflective of a chapter in my life. I look at Halloween as the prologue; I look at Dying Star as chapter one. And this next record is going to be chapter two. Everything was truly deliberate. I took this little field microphone out to do all of the things that – I did all of those soundbites between the songs on Halloween myself. And if it didn’t read or listen as a story; if it didn’t offer a narrative of some sort, I wouldn’t feel like I accomplished what I wanted to do.

Ruston Kelly comes to the Workplay Theatre on Saturday, March 16. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Charli Adams opens. Tickets are $15.

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June 27, 2018 · 7:35 pm

American Aquarium roll with the changes.

When things changed for American Aquarium’s B.J. Barham — he found himself without a band and uninspired — he packed up his things and traversed America with his wife at his side. He visited every continental state, but more importantly, he talked to the people.

He’s a dad now. He has an entirely new band now, which reinvigorated his creative process. And he learned a lot about himself and found new inspiration in both America’s geographical and political landscapes. 

Things Change is an important record in 2018 because, as America finds itself at its most divisive, it’s important for people outside of the South to hear people with Barham’s deep North Carolina drawl say the things that he says. It’s a record that has already found itself on many mid-year lists, including Rolling Stone Country’s Top 25 Records of the Year So Far. It’s Barham’s eighth studio record under the American Aquarium moniker, and it’s been hailed as the best of the bunch.

Before bringing the new band to Birmingham, he spoke with Jefferson County Journal about fatherhood, the new band, Trump’s America, and the state of country music.

Jefferson County Journal: You’ve become a dad since the last time we spoke. How has it changed you?

B.J. Barham: A dad. It’s weird. It’s something that I never wanted in my 20s and now that I have it, it’s my favorite thing in the entire world.

Jefferson County Journal: Did you ever think you’d settle down?

Barham: I never thought I’d be that responsible, and I [still] don’t think I am. My wife is doing the heavy lifting on responsibility. Over the last couple of years, it’s been fun to become the antithesis of everything that I wanted to be in my 20s.

Jefferson County Journal: This is an entirely new band for this record. How do you choose to release an album under the American Aquarium name versus your own name? 

Barham: It’s kind of ironic — American Aquarium has always been an extremely autobiographical vessel for my songwriting. Everything I write [for American Aquarium] is extremely personal. It’s raw. It’s honest. It’s emotional. I did the B.J. Barham side project — the solo project — and it was all fictional, narrative songs. A lot of people get confused because the B.J. Barham stuff is all just made-up stories that have my name on them, and then everything that pertains to me and have my observations and are the way I feel about things have the American Aquarium moniker on them.

I try to distinguish that for people and tell them, “If you want to hear about my personal life, it’s the American Aquarium record, but if you want to hear this rolling, fictional narrative — folky songs — that’s what the B.J. Barham stuff was.

Jefferson County Journal: This time when you changed the band lineup, you made an especially pronounced public announcement. Why did you feel like that was necessary this time? What made this one different than past lineup changes?

Barham: When I think of the band situation over the past 12 years, “tumultuous” is a word that comes to mind. Since 2006, I’ve had over 30 members in this band. I’ve never made a record back-to-back with the same exact band. There’s always been at least one or two people leaving, one or two people coming in. This was the first time that there was a mass exodus. It was the first time there was a huge — almost a mutiny — where everybody kind of quit.

So I felt like I needed to make a public statement. If you just show up [to a performance] and you’re introducing [band members] and you just say, “Oh, here’s the keyboard player. Here’s his name,” you can gloss over that and slide it in without too many people paying attention. But when your hardcore fan base that has been supporting you for a decade-plus hears that the entire band that they fell in love with isn’t there anymore, there’s going to be questions. There’s going to be concerns. There’s going to be a little bit of scrutiny. There’s going to be a lot of doubt.

So I felt like I had to be up-front with the people that allow me to do what I want to do for a living. Once the boys quit, I wanted to be as transparent as possible. And I think anyone that has seen us since the new band formed — they don’t have any of that doubt anymore. There’s none of that scrutiny. The closest thing I can equate it to is when you’ve been coming home to the family reunion every year with that same girl you were dating in high school and everybody fell in love with her, then you show up the year you go to college with the crazy girl. And your grandma says, “Well whatever happened to that nice girl? I liked her. She was nice. She’s been here for seven years.” And you have to say, “Grandma, you may have liked her, but she wasn’t good for me. She wasn’t the best thing for me.”

Now I think anyone that has seen this band realizes that without question, this is the version of American Aquarium that’s going to stick for a while. This band is great. And don’t get me wrong, the last band was fun. We conquered a lot of milestones together. But just like any relationship, you start on the same page and then you grow as people. And when you grow as people, sometimes that means you grow apart as people. It’s just life. It’s how relationships work.

Toward the end of that relationship — 2016 or 2017 — it was a creative wasteland for me. The last songs that I wrote before I wrote Things Change were [for the solo album] Rockingham, which were written in the fall of 2015. For someone that comes out and calls himself a songwriter in public every day, going two years without writing a song caused a lot of self-doubt. It caused a lot of turmoil.

When the boys left, I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this anymore. Maybe I need to reassess what I’m doing with my life.” Once I got acquainted with these new guys, once I got reinvigorated and became excited about music again, it was like someone walked over to a water spigot and turned it on and I wrote a record in two months. And as far as I’m concerned — as far as concise group of songs goes — it’s hands-down the best record that American Aquarium has put out. I think a lot of longtime fans and a lot of new fans agree with me.

Jefferson County Journal: During those two years, you did the ‘Great 48 Tour.’ You played a show in every state in the continental U.S., and you visited our national parks throughout. It was partially inspired by your wanting to understand people and why they voted for Donald Trump. What did you learn on that tour?

Barham: A lot of people thought the ‘Great 48’ was my Hail Mary throw after the band quit. But the funny thing is, the ‘Great 48’ was booked well before the band quit. It was supposed to be just me going out and seeing the country with my wife before we decided to settle down and have kids.

We booked it in probably September or October. After the election actually happened, it became a good thing for me to just talk to people. It created dialogue. I’m from the South. I’m a progressive Southerner, but I’m still from the South. Being from the South, I’ve learned that just because people voted for that man, I don’t believe they’re bigoted, misogynistic hatemongers. There’s good people out there that just got put in a tight spot and they felt like this wild card was the way to get out of it. Talking to people, I realize that’s exactly what it was.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s still a subset of his constituents that voted because of their hate for minorities or taking away women’s rights or then there’s the Christian-base — and talk about Hail Marys, talk about desperation—the Christian-base put their faith in that man. It was a hard time for the Republican Party, and they took a chance on a wild card. And it paid off for them in the short term, but I think in the long term, it only did damage to the party.

But for average Joe — the guy that is out there working 50 hours a week to take care of his family — they’re not hateful people. They’re good people at heart. I grew up with those people; I went to school with those people. I play songs for those people every single night.

At first I was angry. I was really mad that our country let this happen. But then that anger turned to compassion once that ‘Great 48 Tour’ started. I started realizing that people didn’t vote for a lot of the reasons that news outlets are trying to say they voted. Good people were desperate and they made that decision. And now we’ve got to work together; it takes open dialogue. To heal the fracture that this election caused our country, it’s going to take open dialogue. It’s going to take focusing on the stuff that we have in common rather than the stuff that we don’t.

Jefferson County Journal: You’ve said that on that tour, you found some of the reddest states and areas of the country weren’t even in the South.

Barham: Yeah, everyone wants to talk about Mississippi and Alabama and South Carolina — the Deep South — but people forget about Texas. People forget about Oklahoma. People forget about that Bible Belt — that Midwest, corn-fed Bible Belt. And that’s a huge part of the country. As progressives, we like to focus on the east and west coasts, and we tend to forget that there’s a lot of people between the coasts. And a lot of times, those are just hard-working, blue-collar Americans that are trying to do the best they can for their families.

There’s a lot of elitists in our party that only focus on New York and Philly and D.C. and Los Angeles and Seattle. That’s not what makes up the majority of our country; for us to have open dialogue, people on the coasts are going to have to start having compassion and showing a willingness to listen to the people in the Midwest.

On Things Change‘s opening track, “The World Is on Fire,” you talk about how folks are afraid. Have you figured out why?

Barham: Everybody is afraid. Liberals. Republicans. We’re all afraid. Everybody is afraid of change. There’s two reactions after every election. You get to poke your chest out and scream about how your side won and “Change is a-coming!” or you’re cowering in a corner talking about how the world is going to come to an end.

We’ve been conditioned to think the other side is the devil. If the Republicans win — [or] if the Democrats win — the world is going to go to hell in a hand basket. What I think people forget is the resolve of this country. America hasn’t gone anywhere. We’ve had a shift in power since it began. There’ve only been four elections in our country where a different Republican won an election or a Democrat won after a Democrat. It’s always been a flip-flop. It’s always been a balance of power. And that’s the thing that makes this country beautiful; no one side stays in power that long without being checked by the other side. That’s a really great thing. The American people aren’t going to let this thing fall apart. Yeah, we got ourselves into this situation, but I think the resolve of this country is what’s going to get us out of it.

Jefferson County Journal: You have a song on the record called “I Gave Up the Drinking (Before She Gave Up on Me)” that is definitely a country song. Why is there a stigma around the community you’re part of about calling a country song a country song?

Barham: Country music gets a bad rap because of what is presented today as country music. Country music has been around way before my dad — before me — and it’ll be here way after me. I’m sure it will have many more different looks and phases. But country music for me has a different meaning than what I think it means to the average radio listener. Country music for me is just normal individuals who make observations on the world around them and write as honestly and openly about them as they can with real instruments — real guitars and fiddles and pianos and pedal steel and drums — that’s what makes country music to me.

It’s not necessarily the twang; it’s about the subject matter. It’s about writing about your everyday life and the everyday life of people around you. A lot of people talk about how country music is dead or country music needs saving. No, it doesn’t. You’re just looking in the wrong place. You’re not going to find real country music on the radio these days unless someone like [Chris] Stapleton comes along every 10 years and re-injects a little faith into the outsiders who’ll say, “Listen, this is what we started as, let’s get back to center.”

I think they throw folks like Stapleton in just to get us back to that center because it starts veering so far in the wrong direction. But there’s plenty of great country music: Tyler Childers, Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers, Lucero. No matter what style or what music you like, there’s real country music being played around the country on any night of the week in any town you’re in, probably. You’ve just got to go out and find it. And I like to consider us part of the group that is real country music that people are going to have to find.

Jefferson County Journal: When you visited Birmingham on the ‘Great 48 Tour,’ you revealed that you have a deep love and appreciation for country music — specifically, for country music in this very specific time period between about 1988 and 1995. Who were your top five country artists from that time frame?

Barham: My love for that music doesn’t come from the actual music; my love for that era comes from the memories from that time when that music was playing as a soundtrack. Hanging out with my dad on road trips; riding to school with mom and listening to country radio.

Travis Tritt. Randy Travis is way up there. George Strait is up there. Alabama is another one of my favorites. And I’d say Dwight Yoakam. Dwight Yoakam was that era’s Chris Stapleton; they threw a real country artist in to remind us where we came from, and it took a kid from California to remind a North Carolina kid what country music really was.

Those would be my top five. I still listen to them today on road trips. Those are the five I always put on. But the ‘80s marked a really interesting time in country music, because it’s the time when we really had a split between entertainers and artists. If you notice, that split came when music videos became a thing. When you could actually see the person singing your song, it started to matter what those people looked like.

The record labels started focusing on how people looked in jeans and a cowboy hat. You’ve got to have a strong jawline to be a country singer nowadays, and I don’t have that jawline. Before country music videos, your country singers were ugly as sin. You had Willie Nelson. You had Waylon Jennings. You had Merle Haggard; who wrote their songs and sang their songs and played their songs. And they were ugly. But nobody cared what they looked like as long as they sounded good and sang songs that meant something. But once you started seeing music videos, you noticed that real country music started dying and entertainers started popping up.

American Aquarium comes to Saturn on Friday, June 29. Travis Meadows opens. Doors are at 8 p.m. and the show begins at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit saturnbirmingham.com. 

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December 12, 2017 · 4:19 am

“I always wanted to play music” – a conversation with Bully’s Alicia Bognanno

Bully made a huge mark on Nashville’s new rock sound with this year’s Losing, a critically acclaimed sophomore effort that is topping everyone’s year-end best-of lists. Raised in Minnesota, Alicia Bognanno formed the band when she came to Middle Tennessee State University to pursue a degree in audio engineering.
On the band’s way into Birmingham, Bognanno talked about how engineering remains a passion, signing with Columbia Records and maintaining “cred” while on a major label.

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February 17, 2014 · 8:40 pm

White Denim’s Josh Block talks about working with Wilco and the festival circuit prior to Thursday’s BottleTree stop.

You may have only heard of White Denim recently, as the tune “Pretty Green” has become a mainstay in the Birmingham Mountain Radio rotation, but the single comes from the band’s sixth studio album, and that’s to say nothing of five other EP’s, including a live session at Jack White’s Third Man Records in 2011. The Austin, Texas quartet has evolved quite a bit, from the fusion of two other bands into psychedelia and into a version that features more radio-friendly vocal structures from frontman James Petralli.

They’ll be at BottleTree Cafe on Thursday, February 20 mixing older tunes with material from their 2013 release

Doors open at 8 p.m., while the show begins at 9 p.m. ThunderKrotch and The Districts will open, and tickets can be purchased at the venue for $12.

I spoke to drummer Josh Block about the band’s evolution and how it has fit into its own backyard, a notable a vibrant Austin scene and the band’s time with working with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.

Blake Ells for Birmingham Box Set:

When you guys began, you were a little bit more instrumental. How did you evolve from that band into what we now hear on the radio?

Josh Block:

Oh wow. Getting right to it – that’s a good question. Well, you know, we have a lot of instrumental passages but when we started, we were actually another band called Parque Touch, with another guy, and then Steve [Terebecki, bass and vocals] joined the band and when we did the transition, we kind of did it in the midst of, you know, one guy moving to Russia [Lucas Anderson] and James [Petralli, vocals and guitar] taking over pretty much everything.

So we kind of threw in a lot more instrumental passages because it was exciting to do, but we always had songs. It just made it an easy transition for us. It was kind of about the work flow and how we worked. We did a lot of music recording, and then recorded the vocals afterwards. It was always very spur of the moment and very spontaneous. Sometimes some of those passages never really jived too well. You know, we didn’t really leave space for the vocals. [laughs] So I think we just kind of started making records with that in mind. James started writing more and bringing us tunes the way he had them rather than bringing it in and letting us work with it before he put the whole thing in front of us. That’s kind of how the progression has gone.

BE:

So basically, the whole writing process has changed for you? There was a time that you wrote something and he tried to put vocals with it, but now, he writes something you and you write the music around his lyrics?

JB:

That’s one way to say it. He’s always kind of brought it and we’ve always written around him, but he used to kind of bring it in smaller chunks. And it was a more gradual approach. And now it’s more full, complete ideas. We’re recording in nicer places, you know, we don’t have the trailer anymore. We’d sit there and just spend a whole day on the bass parts.

BE:

Do you still include jam sessions like that in the live show or do you forgo that now?

JB:

We do. We still stretch parts out. There’s still a lot of instrumental sections. They may be strung together a little more precisely now. The first time we played the BottleTree, we were probably a three piece and playing a lot more instrumental stuff. It may have seemed a little more chaotic and I think now it’s a little tighter and a little more precise.

BE:

Was James always hiding that voice and how did you discover that it was in him?

JB:

I don’t know that he was hiding it. [laughs] When we were Parque Touch, we had another guy up there and when he moved to Russia, it was an easy progression because James was always ready to do it. He sang in a band in high school, so he’s kind of always had that and always written songs on his porch. So it’s just a matter of easing the band into it. We weren’t really a pop tune type of band before. And I guess folks wouldn’t call us that now, but we feel like we are compared to the old days [laughs].

BE:

How do you fit into the Austin scene?

JB:

You know, we don’t really fit in that well, actually. [laughs] We always fit in great with club owners and clubs and that part of the scene. I don’t want to call it “working class,” but we have always kind of been working joes, not really hanging out in the scene too much. We went straight from full time jobs to full time on the road. The mentality of club owners appealed to us a lot more than dudes in other bands, hanging out at bars and not doing anything with our time. I don’t think we got really into the scene from the beginning.

The Austin scene is club driven, so that’s where we fit in. There are a couple of bands that we hung with but it’s because they hung out with the club owners, too. We started at club called Trophies and there was a band called Lions that played there, and they were pretty cool dudes. They knew the guy who owned it and we used to hang out there in the day after work, get a couple of beers before we went home. That’s how we fit in more than always playing the same shows with the same bands.

BE:

What’s it like being a part of that community where it seems like something is always going on?

JB:

It’ll make your head spin, that’s for sure. [laughs] It’s a vibrant community. There’s always visitors and tons of excitement. It’s a bit overstimulating at times. That probably sums it up best.

BE:

“Psychedelic” isn’t a genre we hear used a lot anymore, and I know that artists hate genres and labels, but is that a fair one for you guys?

JB:

We’ll take it. We’ll take just about anything. I think that one’s fair, though, because the forms are irregular. That kind of works by taking R&B and basic rock ideas and stretching the forms out to be a little bit outside the norm. And that kind of sums us up and we don’t mind that.

BE:

Do I hear a Southern rock influence, too?

JB:

Oh yeah. We’re all from the Dallas/Fort Worth area originally, although Steve is originally from Alabama.

BE:

What part?

JB:

Birmingham. From Birmingham to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Virginia.

BE:

Was there any Dan Auerbach, or I suppose, Patrick Carney, influence? [via:

@melzeronine

]

JB:

That band had already kind of gotten started so I don’t know that there was much.

BE:

You guys took Moon Taxi from Birmingham out recently, any fun stories?

JB:

They were super nice! We just played those two shows in Boulder and Denver with them. They were pretty straight ahead dudes. We shared a green room and a toilet overflowed, but that’s normal. I guess that’s the weirdest thing that happened.

BE:

How did you hook up with Wilco a few years back?

JB:

It was great. For me, personally, it was pretty life changing. Super cool dudes. We met them at Sasquatch. They were side stage for part of our show, and they invited us to stand side stage for their show. We got to meet them afterwards. It made my summer by them enjoying our set. We hit them up pretty hard afterwards and got to tour with them, and after touring with them, we got to work with Jeff Tweedy in the studio.

BE:

Is he a difficult guy to work with?

JB:

He’s the absolute opposite of difficult to work with. He was a pleasure to be around. Really good at just being in the studio, that’s probably the best way to put it. Really comfortable in there.

BE:

Did you grow up a fan of Wilco or Uncle Tupelo before you worked with them?

JB:

Oh yeah, big fan. More of it was just watching them operate on the daily. That’s pretty big – to learn from guys like that. And to be able to learn from them for an extended period of time, watching how their operation happens, watching guys like that practice every day.  You get used to being on the road and watching bands whose practice is 45 minutes to and hour and a half that they play onstage each night, and other than that they just drink and joke around and hang out, which is cool, we do plenty of that, too, but it’s cool to see guys who better themselves on a daily basis as well. And I think that was the biggest part for me – to watch every member of that group constantly better themselves instead of what usually happens, which is bands just getting worse.

BE:

You mentioned Sasquatch, and you’ve done a lot of the festival circuit including Bonnaroo. Which is your favorite festival experience?

JB:

That’s hard. There’s a little festival in the U.K. called End of the Road Festival, and it’s just a beautiful location – really well run, and really well booked. They only book the best bands – maybe not the “best” bands, but you know, you can tell it’s not just booking agents. It’s very taste driven. The location is wonderful. Probably between there and this little festival in Oregon called Pickathon. It was very communal and we met a lot of great people. Between those two. Neither of them were big, overblown operations but they were definitely huge as far as the performers.

BE:

A national publication recently hinted that acts like Outkast reuniting for festivals were ruining the festival circuit. Do you agree? Would you rather play festivals or play smaller clubs like BottleTree?

JB:

The first part of the question – I don’t think it’s ruining the festival circuit, I think it’s making it more of a thing for everyone. More small bands can play them, they can connect tours better. I want festivals to do well. That’s what makes it a festival circuit. There’s something out there for everyone and that’s a good thing.

Club shows are a lot of fun, but it’s a “grass is greener” kind of thing. By the time summer rolls around, you’re kind of ready for those festivals. It’s a nice and simple operation: you show up, everyone knows what they are doing, you load in and play in front of a lot of people. I’m not trying to dodge the question, but right now I’m enjoying clubs. I know that come summer, I’ll be ready for festivals.

BE:

You talked about a U.K. festival, and I get the impression that you have a ton of success overseas. I listen to a song like “Pretty Green” and I hear Beatles all over it. Maybe that’s unfair.

JB:

No it does. I completely agree.

BE:

Do you ever feel like you were meant for another era? Or are you content giving that sound to a new generation?

JB:

You feel like that at times. Maybe, “I wonder what it’d be like if we were doing this in the mid-70’s.”

But most bands out there are pulling from that. You know, everyone has kind of drawn from the history that has been built for us. And that’s what they were doing then, too. Revivalists are kind of a different thing. I like doing it, and when we get a chance we will, but we’re not quite that.

And the English, they love Southern rock. So it’s easy for us there.

BE:

You conceded that “Pretty Green” has a Beatles vibe. Was that deliberate? Did you go into that thinking you’d write the song the Beatles never wrote?

JB:

No. Everything we used in the studio was from the 50’s and 60’s, so it’s going to end up sounding like that just because of the things we were surrounding ourselves with.

BE:

Did you record in Texas?

JB:

We did. We built a studio at a lake house. We have a friend that was nice enough to pull gear from his studios and install it, so he kind of pieced it all together and built a nice little studio on the lake.

BE:

Who are the top five American rock bands of all time?

JB:

That is really difficult. This is a personal one, so you can say this is Josh’s top five. And luckily you said American rock bands, so that helps a little.

I’d say Little Feat. And we’re talking about bands not singers, so Dylan doesn’t count.

BE:

I’ve always been flexible with interpretation.

JB:

No, you can put this note in there that I’m doing this with bands, not singers. I think that’s important, because Dylan had a bunch of bands.

BE:

Right, and some people refuse to include Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band because they weren’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together.

JB:

Yeah, but what you could

say is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. So, I’d say Little Feat, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the TCB Band, Elvis’s band with James Burton, ZZ Top and Pantera.

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December 13, 2013 · 7:32 pm

Jeffrey Cain’s Communicating Vessels opens Woodlawn storefront in 2013, part of community’s revitalization

To say that the recent revitalization of Woodlawn is remarkable is an understatement. There are new kids on the block, like Sound and Page, a listening room created by Caleb Chancey of War Jacket. There are a few that have been around a while, like the rock club The Forge and Substrate Radio. And there are the forefathers that began moving the historic community into its current direction: Revive Birmingham, responsible for the recent Revive Woodlawn project, Audiostate 55 Recording Studios and Communicating Vessels, a Birmingham-based record label quickly becoming a tastemaker in the Magic City and beyond.

Several years ago, Jeffrey Cain founded Communicating Vessels by releasing a series of 7″ vinyls by Birmingham artists. The collection was more than music – it was art. And that has been the aim of Cain’s label from the beginning. This year, Communicating Vessels created a storefront at its Woodlawn recording studio at 55th Place South. There, customers can buy and hear music from every artist on the label, interact with other music fans and share an experience. The experience of music is the foundation of Woodlawn’s new face.

I sat down with Cain, former member of Remy Zero, in his studio and talked about his decision to begin his project in Woodlawn, the experience that he hopes to provide Birmingham’s music community and his time with the band from Alabama which once opened for Radiohead.

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November 8, 2013 · 9:30 am

Band of Horses lead singer Ben Bridwell brings his solo tour to BottleTree on Monday

Red Mountain Entertainment presents: Birdsmell at BottleTree Cafe on Monday, November 11. Birdsmell is the solo side project of Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell. Doors will open at 8 p.m., while the show is set to begin at 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 are available online and at the venue. Bryan Cates will open.

I spoke to Bridwell about the side project, his influences and his Georgia fandom.

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July 22, 2013 · 7:23 pm

Psychedelic Furs “Talk Talk Talk” about their trip to Workplay on Monday

The Psychedelic Furs come to the Workplay Theatre on Monday, July 22. The show is presented by Birmingham Mountain Radio and Technicolors will open. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $30, and the performance is set to begin at 8 p.m.

I spoke to bassist Tim Butler about how he ended up in Liberty, Kentucky, the band’s future recording plans and Pretty in Pink.

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May 16, 2013 · 12:09 pm

Best Coast meets Gulf Coast

Best Coast makes its first trip to Alabama as Best Coast, and they’ll do it twice this month. Their first set in the Yellowhammer State will be in Gulf Shores on Sunday at the Hangout Music Festival. The band will play the Chevrolet Stage at 12:15. Then on Thursday, May 30, Birmingham Mountain Radio presents Best Coast with Lovely Bad Things at the Workplay Theatre. Tickets to the show can be purchased online at www.workplay.com for $15.

I spoke to Bobb Bruno from the Los Angeles garage rock duo about their upcoming visit, his favorite tacos and working with Drew Barrymore and Billie Joe Armstrong.

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October 3, 2012 · 6:59 pm

Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires Take Bottletree Stage On Thursday

Lee Bains III lives in Atlanta now, but he’ll always consider Birmingham home. The native’s band is still based in the Magic City. The band is part of an Alabama scene making national waves. It’s Southern garage and blues rock sound follows in the footsteps of Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Alabama Shakes, catching the attention of publications like Rolling Stone and earning an opening slot on the latter’s most recent headlining tour. The band opens for Pujol on Thursday at BottleTree Cafe. Doors open at 9 p.m. and tickets are $10. I spoke to Lee about that scene, his other band, The Dexateens, and his obsession with water, which he can be seen carrying around in a gallon jug before each show.

Blake Ells for Birmingham Box Set:

How much water do you drink in a day?

Lee Bains III:

[laughs] At least a gallon. On tour, it’s probably two. I started it with the Dexateens because I’d smoke two packs a day. I’d wake up after a show and could barely speak, let alone sing. So I started doing it all day long so I could keep smoking at night. In the Dexateens, I was sort of in the background, so I could get away with sounding [terrible]. When we first went on the road, we did three shows in a row once, and at the end of the third, I couldn’t talk. I finally quit [smoking], partially because of that.

BE:

How was the tour with the [Alabama] Shakes?

LBIII:

That tour was really good. It was as good of an opening slot as you could ask for. I believe every show we played was sold out, and at almost every one, the entire crowd had arrived before we started. And [the Alabama Shakes] are great people. They were a lot busier than we were, though – they’d have to go do Letterman or get pulled away for a

Rolling Stone

interview.

BE:

What and where was your first gig? What band were you with?

LBIII:

My first real – like, playing a venue and not a talent show – gig was, I think in Anniston. Or maybe it was in Montevallo at a place called Barnstormer’s. Yeah, actually, I think that’s it. This was in high school. We were in a band called the Shut-Ins. They were all guys I had grown up with. They sounded like Hot Water Music or Small Brown Biker, but they got more metal and wanted another guitar, so they called me. It was this Judas Priest meets Thin Lizzy kind of thing. Yeah, it was definitely at Barnstormer’s.

BE:

Are the Dexateens really done?

LBIII:

I guess we’re not “done” done. We still play every once in a while, and that seems like the plan – play a show every three months or so. And we try to stay close, like, Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia, nothing too crazy. But, you know, I’ve been busy with The Glory Fires and [Matt] Patton’s been busy with the Drive-By Truckers. It’s just hard to find the time. We’re actually playing a show in November in Montgomery, and I’m sure we’ll do more here and there.

BE:

Brian [Gosdin, drummer] mentioned there may be some finished material out there. Or the beginnings of it. Will that ever see the light of day?

LBIII:

We have one entire record. It’s very close to a finished album that we probably did two years ago. I think Elliott [McPherson, vocals and guitar] likes the way some of it came out, but he wasn’t happy with others. He’s had time to rewrite and we’ve re-recorded some stuff. And there are new songs, too, that are in various stages of repair. In grand total, there are probably 30 songs that are close to done. But we’re taking our time with all of it. No one feels any sense of urgency. Elliott has ideas he wants to get out. Plus, we’re all so busy and scattered, it’s hard.

BE:

What do you think of the Birmingham scene right now?

LBIII:

Birmingham’s always had a strong community. I haven’t lived there in two years, so for the first time, I’m a little out of it. There’s this generation of bands that came a little behind mine. I don’t know the 24-25-year-olds there anymore. But there are so many folks making great music. Everybody knows each other. There’s an incestuous thing that can be problematic for sure, and that’s what sometimes causes people to leave. You just end up playing with the same bands.

But even though I live in Atlanta, I still consider myself a part of that crowd. The other guys are still there. Having that connection with so many people is good for checking yourself creatively and keeps you grounded. Those relationships where people have seen you develop and can better assess what you can do than anybody.

I’ll go to a show at BottleTree and find myself talking to someone I was in a band with when I was 16. Not even [kidding]. It’s wild.

BE:

I realize this may be premature because

There is a Bomb in Gilead

is still less than a year old. But when can we expect the next one?

LBIII:

We’re ready. I wish it were tomorrow. We’ve been trying to stay busy touring and working when we’re not touring. So I’d say we’ll try to record in Spring and have it out by Summer.

BE:

Are you playing any of the new tunes live?

LBIII:

Yeah, we’re playing some. But we haven’t had much time to practice them together. I’ll write a tune and I’ll do a demo and when we play a show, I’ll put it on in the van and we’ll kind of work it out while we’re on the road and during soundcheck. It’s fun because a song can change every couple of shows. “Well, that doesn’t work, so we’ll cut that in half and rewrite it.”

BE:

Who are the top five American rock bands of all time?

LBIII:

What? Whaaaaaaaa? Dammit.

https://2b48044af0c6200aba67520e746a36ce.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-41/html/container.html

I’m going to have to come up with a thesis. I’ve got to explain myself. So what’s that [thesis] going to be? I can’t just do my five favorite. That won’t work. And I don’t want to do five influential or something like that.

Hmm. Let’s see here. I’ll rule out singers and singer/songwriters – so that takes care of Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Otis Redding, they definitely don’t qualify.

A couple come to mind – whenever someone asks the great American rock band, you know, like the great American novel – it’s not necessarily my favorite, but this is America in rock form: The Ramones.

That’s distinctively America – a seminal band.

That’s going to be my representative from that era. And I guess I’ll say Skynyrd.

It’s killing me. I keep thinking of all of these bands. I guess I want to say The Replacements. The thing that’s weird to me about the question is that in the 70’s or the mid-70’s, the great bands totally lost all of their artistic validity. After that point, every band I’d mention was pretty much independent.

I keep thinking The Stooges. And I think I’m going to throw this in there just because, to me, they kind of blew the doors off and a lot of other bands. They influenced bands and forced them to rethink the way they thought about themselves: Fugazi.

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