Showing posts with label Robert Earl Keen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Earl Keen. Show all posts

Sep 22, 2016

Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly: The Farce the Music Interview


Doing What They Do at the Sunset Motel
By Kevin Broughton

It might strain credulity that a couple guys shy of their fortieth birthdays would be considered elder statesmen of a music scene. Unless, of course, their last name is Braun. Reckless Kelly’s Cody and Willy Braun have a musical pedigree that’s genuinely hard to fathom. Grandpa Musty was a roadhouse piano player & singer in rural Idaho who in his childhood learned to play accordion from a neighbor named Lawrence Welk. Father Muzzie toured the Mountain West with his brothers before forming Muzzie Braun & The Boys, a western swing band featuring his four sons.

Practically before they were out of short pants, brothers Cody, Willy, Micky and Gary had played the Opry and Johnny Carson, and opened for the likes of Haggard and Cash. So, yeah, it makes sense that Reckless Kelly – two decades into a professional music career – are viewed as an institution in the (pick one) Red Dirt/Texas Country/Roots Music scene.  

Sunset Motel, the band’s 11th album and their first on the Thirty Tigers label, premieres Friday, and it’s what anyone familiar with them has come to expect: tight instrumentation and arrangements; damn near perfect lead vocals from Willy that fit just as snugly in a plaintive ballad or driving rocker; and the kind of comfort level found in a pair of 10-year-old Justin ropers. It is – like seemingly all their records – vintage Reckless Kelly. It’s what they do.

We caught up with Willy (young for a musical greybeard at 38) while he chilled in Austin in advance of an upcoming East Coast tour. Topics included longing for the days of big-hatted musical clichés, a new record label and the state of the country music industry, and the virtues of turning off the water whilst brushing one’s teeth.


Your brother Cody mentioned through your publicist that you wrote “30 or 40” songs for this album, y’all recorded 20 of them, and 13 made the final cut. Sounds like at least another album’s worth of tunes are at the ready; is there any chance of y’all going Physical Graffiti, so those outliers are on a future album?

Yeah, there’s quite a few that we ended up recording that weren’t too bad you know, that turned out good, and we just had too many to put on one album. That’s kinda the first time we’ve ever really done that. We’ve had a couple leftover songs in the past, we’ve never had that many. There’s probably gonna be a collection of kinda outtakes, demos and stuff like that somewhere down the road. We’re not sure. We were kinda thinking about doing it for our 20th anniversary, but that’s this year, so we missed that boat. (Laughs) We might do it in a few years or something like that. There’s some stuff that’ll probably get seen.

Over what time period did you write these songs?

Well, let’s see. I started writing I guess maybe not long after Long Night Moon came out which was September 2013, so between then and about a year ago, I was writing kind of up until we went into the studio this spring but I wasn’t doing a lot after maybe last summer. Kind of got the bulk of it out of the way.

Reckless Kelly is one of those bands with an unmistakable sound.  I mean, within a couple of measures of the intro, then a couple more with your voice, it’s “Well, that’s a Reckless Kelly song.” Y’all have your own distinct style. How, if at all, would you say Sunset Motel is different?”

Man, I think it’s probably just a little more the modern version of the band. We’ve been doing it for about 20 years and we never really wanted to stray too far from what the people liked about us in the first place. But you can’t go making the same record over and over, so you have to slightly reinvent yourself every time; try to write about different things. Like I said, you don’t want to go too far off the rails because you know that’s what got people involved in the first place. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to put your finger on that Reckless Kelly sound, it’s just 5 guys who’ve been playing together for a long time, it’s just something that’s evolved over time. It changes a little bit every year, probably, but nothing really too fast.

I want to get into a couple specific songs and then jump around some.  First, “Radio.” There are some brief snippets of songs at the very beginning before things crank up, and they’re just too quick for me to pinpoint.  Are one or more of them y’all, sounds like there may be a girl too? This is uber-trivial, but I’m curious.

Actually, none of them are us. It’s the people that came into the studio, we had a few guest musicians on the record. A couple of people came in and we recorded some stuff that didn’t end up making the album. We thought it’d be cool, we wanted to do like a radio thing… we thought it’d be cool if we used our friends who were kinda on the record so …it’s a Mickey & the Motorcars song “Tonight We Ride.”

Mickey and a couple other guys from the Motorcars came in and played some acoustic guitars on a couple of the tracks. Then there’s a Rosie Flores tune on there. She didn’t end up actually being on this record, but we cut a version of “Wild Horses” with her and Keith Gattis ‘cause they bopped by one day and we were just messing around. So the Keith Gattis song on there too, his version of “El Cerrito Place,” I think it’s the first one you hear. And Chris and Eleanor Masterson also, Eleanor played a bunch of strings and fiddle stuff and Chris did a guitar part on “Sad Songs About You” so there’s a little piece of a Mastersons song on there too.

I should probably know this, and a better reporter would have researched this better, but where did y’all record this and who produced it?

We produced it ourselves. My brother Cody, and Dave, our guitar player, and I have pretty much produced the last 3 or 4 records we’ve done. We recorded it here in Austin at Arlyn Studios. That’s the studio we made our first record at 20 years ago…they were kind of… they weren’t closed down but they were doing more like editing and video production for a long time and they just reopened the studio as a recording studio. It was kind of cool to go back there and kind of revisit the past a little bit.

I interpret the song as somewhere between tongue-in-cheek/good humor and a big ole middle finger to Nashville. Where would you put it on the continuum? Or am I just missing it completely?

No, you’re right, it’s tongue-in-cheek and …it’s not really so much of a middle finger to Nashville. It’s kind of more, it’s making fun of people in Nashville but not just Nashville, kind of kids today, for lack of a better expression. Any genre you want to talk about, there’s gonna be kids who don’t really do their homework, didn’t really put the time in that it takes to become a really good musician. A lot of people these days think you can learn 3 or 4 chords, and write 10 songs, and make a record and then you’re a rock ‘n roll star.

Well, they’ve got a bit of a point. Sad freakin’ thing…

 (Laughs) Yeah. But the guys that we looked up to looked up to guys before them, and they did their research and learned about…you know… we’ve played in jam sessions with people sometimes and they don’t know any Merle Haggard songs, and we’re like man how did you even get to this point where you’re playing guitar in front of people and you can’t play anything but like the six songs that you wrote. Just kind of blows my mind.

I heard somebody one time, I wish I could remember who it was, on the Buddy and Jim Show on Outlaw Country (Sirius XM). It was an old songwriting hand and he said “You know, it used to be you’d go to Nashville and they’d audition you with a tape recorder and now it’s like they’re doing it with a video recorder.” I thought that summed it up pretty well.

Yeah, it’s kind of amazing, there’s just so much competition and so many people out there these days, YouTube and things like that, where it seems like the bar has been lowered really far. It’s weird for guys who grew up playing music and really respecting the people who came before us …and worked really hard to learn how to play and write and sing, and I’ve been doing it for a long time and then to see people who don’t really have the respect for history – the craft…

Seems there are certain facts of life for acts like Reckless Kelly. Does it still just rub y’all the wrong way that bands with actual integrity and quality songwriting aren’t gonna see the airwaves, but for Sirius XM?

Yeah, that’s a bummer you know. It’s been going on for a long time. Our first album Millican, I wrote a song called “Hat Acts” about the Nashville ‘hat acts.’ That was 20 years ago and it was kinda focused on what I used to call cliché country when people were writing a song all based on a pun on a cliché, which seemed like the thing. Twenty years later I wrote another song about it and that’s “Radio.” Looking back, it’s kind of funny, the guys that I wrote “Hat Acts” about seem like awesome artists at this point. I’m always like “Man I’d take those guys over the crap that they’re putting out now.”

Now it’s like you ought to do one called “Backwards Ball Cap Acts.” You can use that, by the way.

I might, might have to update that one. You know, you really can’t get too annoyed with it. The bummer is that there’s a lot of guys in Nashville, everybody kinda picks on Nashville, but there’s so many great musicians and songwriters and artists in Nashville that you’ll never hear of, just because the mainstream thing is getting crammed down everybody’s throats. Kinda bugs me when people say “Fuck Nashville” or “Nashville sucks” because you’re only seeing like five percent of what that town has to offer. There’s some similarities between that and the Texas scene. The more and more people that start to play music down here …the cream’s gonna rise, but sometimes the people that are making more money are going to get more attention than guys that have more talent.

Y’all recently found a new home with 30 Tigers, a label that just keeps stockpiling more and more quality talent.  How important was the label’s stability and commitment to y’all retaining your independence when y’all made the decision to sign with them?

We started our own label a couple years ago and got a couple records out on it now. We took everything in house for a long time because it seemed like the way the industry was moving, and the fact that we could do a lot of stuff on our own, and keep a little more of the dough is why we did that. But this record, we early on recognized that we’re kind of proud of it and thought there were some good songs. We’re getting to the point where it’s, you never know when people are actually going to stop making records these day. ‘Cause people aren’t buying music anymore and we’re kind of thinking this may be one of our last opportunities to make an actual record that people will buy a physical copy of.

We might be able to get a couple more out of it, but who knows? So we were thinking that this might be a good opportunity to give one more try with a major distribution deal. Those guys have a great track record with bands like us that are sort of outside the norm. The guys that they’ve got on their roster had some real good success with people like that that fit into the same ‘straddling the fence’ category that we’re in. We figured it’d be a good fit so we’re gonna give it a shot and see how they do. Won’t know until it happens, but so far so good. They’ve been on top of everything and they’re easy to work with. I think it’s gonna help us out.

And you’ve mentioned that the band is now in a place where y’all aren’t “killing yourselves to pay the bills.” Can you point to a time in your career that you realized that was the case? When did you know y’all could relax a little bit?

It kind of happened over a long period of time. Back in the old days, we’d play every night, six or seven nights a week. The older you get and the more miles you get traveling around… really we were trying to just tour smarter, so we’re not going out and beating our heads against the wall playing gigs that really weren’t paying off, whether financially or exposure-wise. It took us a while to figure out how to do it, but we basically just wanted to cut those gigs out, or as many of them as we could and focus on the ones that mattered, the ones that got us in front of people or some exposure or paid well. It’s kind of a tricky thing to do, and it’s a lot easier said than done. We’re still working in that direction to try to play less and make more and kind of maximize the exposure and make every gig count. It’s a long process that we’ve been working on for years so it wasn’t anything that we wanted to do overnight.

I have a couple of fan boy questions to get out of the way. First, can there ever be a better murder ballad than “Crazy Eddie’s Last Hurrah?” I mean, it’s perfectly sectioned off: Cheatin’ and leavin’; drinkin’ and drunk-dialin’; and killin’.

I don’t know, that’s such a funny song to me. I probably wrote that thing in less than an hour. Never in a million years would’ve guess that that one was gonna be the big hit, the one that people talked about. It still kind of blows my mind that people like that song as much as they do. It’s kind of a throwaway song to me. I still like playing it, never really disliked it, but I feel like I’ve got a lot better stuff.

There’s no doubt, but when Sugar Hill put out the Best of Americana Series, I don’t think it’s insignificant that the one live cut they put on there was that one. I just think it’s fantastic.

Thanks man. Ragweed recorded that and that made it more popular than we ever would’ve. They had a lot going on at that time. When they put that on their live record , that gave us a little boost.

I noticed that too and …you guys to me are like kindred spirits and you and Cody even sound alike I think, singing. I think there are worse comparisons to be made. Also, has there been an instrument invented that your brother can’t play? The Gourds had Max Johnston, Son Volt’s always had a multi instrumentalist. It’s like y’all have two.  How big an asset to the band is he?

He’s irreplaceable. He’s a great fiddle player, he’s a great mandolin player, he can play harmonica and he’s learning piano and B3 right now. It’s kind of surprising it’s taking as long as it is, because usually …like, he doesn’t play guitar but sometimes he’ll pick up my guitar when it’s just sitting there and then play better than I can and he doesn’t even claim to play guitar and he doesn’t know any chords. 

If he wants to pick out a solo, it sounds like he’s been playing it for 20 years and it kind of pisses me off. Also, I think one of his biggest assets, one of the things he brings to the table most is he’s such a great harmony singer. He and I being brothers and singing for such a long time, he can kind of fall into the pocket with me without even trying at this point. He’ll put three or four parts on some songs. You know, whatever the song needs, he really good about finding that right part or parts and not overdoing it, and knowing when to overdo it. He’s definitely the best harmony singer I know.

Muzzie Braun, JR Cash, and future members
of Reckless Kelly & Micky and the Motorcars,
"at some county fair in Oregon many moons ago."
You and Cody have a well-reported musical pedigree, and were serious about what you were gonna do musically from an early age, getting your GEDs at ages 16 and 17. That’s serious discipline and determination. Assess your career path to this point, and do you still have some concrete, definitive things you want to accomplish going forward?

We always knew we were going to be musicians. That’s what the family business is, and we started playing music in dad’s band before we even realized it. We did home schooling so it was kind of concentrated, so that’s why we were able to get out of school a couple years early. Mom (or her tutors) were only dealing with a couple of kids instead of 35. We were able to do it a little faster than everybody else was. Our main goal starting out, and still is, was to making a living at it.

Our dad always made a living doing it, and my grandpa did and my uncles do, so it’s always just been something that …it’s more important to us to make good music than it is to make money. Basically, our goal and our focus is to make records we’re proud of, and put on good shows, and just be able to make a living at it. And anything that comes on top of that is just kind of gravy, you know. Then, there’s a bucket list of things of course. You wanna play Madison Square Garden and Saturday Night Live and go on tour with Bob Dylan, things like that. You never know if they’re gonna pan out but it’s never too late to accomplish little things like that along the way.

K: Is there a band out there whom y’all have opened for or toured with where you said “dadgum, we’re opening for (fill in the blank)” and it was just awesome?

Yeah, we used to go out and do a lot of shows with Robert Earl Keen and he kind of took us under his wing when we got to town, and I remember thinking about that. When we were going up the east coast with him on this 3 or 4 week run, hanging out with all those guys, and becoming friends and every once in a while we’d get up and sing an encore with them or something. At that age too, it’s quite a while ago, just kind of being in awe of their company and their talent.

There’s been a few times where we got to record a couple songs with Steve Earle one time. I remember listening back to the tracks, we backed him up as the band on a couple of tribute tracks for a Warren Zevon tribute and an Alejandro Escovedo track. Once we got done with that, we recorded them in one day in Nashville. I never listen to our music very much just because once it’s done, I’m kind of sick of it, but I sat and listened to those two songs all night. Like I can’t believe we backed up Steve Earle, he’s always been one of our biggest influences.

Sunset Motel has that traditional Reckless Kelly balance between rockers and ballads, but the bulk of the songs are about relationships. Is this something you set out to do purposefully, or an organic thing?

You know, this record in particular I just had so many ideas for songs that I didn’t get to use on Long Night Moon ‘cause about halfway through Long Night Moon, I realized it was all songs about traveling and I took that route and made a little bit of a theme out of it. So I ended having a bunch of left over ideas and half-written songs that were good, but were just in a different theme. I actually had a bunch of leftover stuff that I wanted to use, and so I decided while I was writing that I wasn’t going to push it in any direction whether it be ballads or rockers or country, love songs, or break up songs, anything like that.

So there’s all sorts of different subject matters. I just wanted to have all the best songs right off the top. We picked about 20 of those, worked them up, and just kept whittling it down until the best ones were the ones that made it on the record.

And let’s talk about “Volcano,” (and I hope you don’t hang up on me or anything) your nod to the issue of climate change.  It’s about as subtle as a punch to the throat…

(Laughs)

..and one of the reasons I asked about the time for writing these songs is that we’re in an election year, and a stranger and more polarizing one than normal…

…it’s nuts, man…

…so did that have any bearing on the release of this song?

Actually, I’ve been working on that song for quite a while. I’ve probably had, not even joking, like 15 versions of it, four different melodies, and four different chord progressions. I kept tinkering with it for a long, long time because I always liked the idea, and I loved the sound of the word volcano. My place up in Idaho where I do a lot of writing is right across from the tallest mountain in Idaho, Mt. Borah. There was an earthquake back in the 80s when we were kids and you can still see this big fault line that runs across the bottom of the mountain where the valley floor dropped like 8 feet and the mountain rose a foot or two.

So that’s where I got the idea for it and it kind of became this song about climate change. Honestly, we’ve done a couple songs that were political in the past and this …at the very last minute we decided to put it on the record because I wasn’t sure I wanted to have this conversation over and over and over. We knew if we did put it on the record, it was gonna happen, that people would be asking us about it. The funny thing is we don’t really want to be known as a political band, but you can only write so many songs about …love songs, or breaking up with a girl, and “Volcano” just ended up being …it sounds cool and I think the song is cool and it’s also a conversation that I think people need to have. We kinda bit the bullet and decided to put it on there and now that it’s out there, I’ve come to peace with the fact that this is probably going to be just one of many political conversations we have to have over the next six months or so.

With that in mind, let’s break this down a little. It’s a catchy as hell song. At the beginning of the song you say, “Not to question your beliefs, not to be rude,” then in the second verse you take a lyrical blowtorch to anyone and everyone with an opposing view. I mean, you seem to openly mock Christians with talk of “God’s plan;” a “flat earth” mentality; “monkeys into man;” and imputing homophobia to anyone not on the same side as you. That’s a pretty broad brush, isn’t it?

Yeah, I think so. I kind of opened the song with the punch line from the old joke, you know, “the water’s cold, and deep too.” It’s saying about this election, it’s literally a pissing contest. I feel like it’s probably gonna piss a few people off. I remember when I was a kid, people used to just throw their beer bottles out the window and that was just totally acceptable. And now 30 years later, you can’t believe that people used to do that. Some people would just dump their old cars in the river. I feel like may in another 20 or 30 years down the road, we’re gonna be talking about this same issue and people will be saying “Well God, I can’t believe people used to use plastic water bottles.” A million different environmental issues that we could go into. I just feel like, a little at a time, over the course of the next few years, or several years even, people will probably start become more aware of it as the problem keeps growing. Whether or not it’s a man-made thing or it isn’t, there’s no harm in, you know, turning the water off while you’re brushing your teeth.

(Laughing) I’ve done that since I was six, I’m from Alabama, and a lifelong Republican.

So just in case, you know. Who knows if it’s gonna help or not, but man. One of these days if we run out of water, you’re probably going to think back on a lot of water that you wasted. Just for an example, you know what I mean?

Is politics/policy a big part of your life, and if so, has it always been? Or did it maybe rub off on you, living in an enclave like Austin?

It definitely rubs off on you. This day and age with Facebook especially, and Twitter, and that kind of stuff where that’s where people get their news. Myself included, most people my age watch John Stewart and John Oliver. I don’t consider myself a really political guy, mostly because I don’t really like having political conversations with anybody that doesn’t agree with me. It’s the same with religion, you’re never gonna change the other guy’s mind. Never seen anybody have an argument about politics or religion where the other person walks away with a new opinion. It’s always a fight. It’s one of those things you’ve just gotta chip away at; you’re never gonna changes somebody’s opinion with just one Facebook post, but maybe if they hear the song 30 times they might start turning the water off when they brush their teeth.

You mentioned in the bio that y’all were part of the “second wave of the movement,” and that Trace by Son Volt had a big impact. That’s a top-5 all time album for me, irrespective of genre. A couple questions along that line. First, can you name a couple other albums for you that are so impactful you’ll never stop listening to them?


Trace is definitely one of those. Guitar Town.  That’s always gonna be one of my favorite records. I was like 10 years old when I heard that album and I don’t think I’ve ever been that impacted by a record since that day. Still listen to it. Our old bass player Shifty and I sat in back of our tour bus one day a few years ago and we – he had his bass and I had my guitar – and just for shits we decided to see if we could play every song on the record and without even thinking about it, we did. All of Guitar Town. 

Wow.

We’d played a few of them before of course, but we knew it that well. We’d heard it that many times. We didn’t even have to look to see what song came up next. It’s like that important of a record to us. That one, and then Billy Joe Shaver’s Live at Smith’s Olde Bar was another one we listened to a ton when we started the band. That combination between Billy Joe’s lyrics, and his country voice, and Eddie’s just rock ‘n’ roll guitar made it like hearing a rock band play country songs, like it’d never been done before. That was another huge record for us when we got started.

And if a generation is roughly 20 years, I guess we’re in and around a new one right about now. Who are some of the emerging artists, particularly in the Red Dirt/Texas Country scene, who’ve grabbed your attention?

Let’s see, there’s a guy named Parker McCullom who’s, he’s got one record out and I’ve only seen him play a few times, and met him a time or two. He’s really good. I think he’s gonna make some waves. He’s a really good songwriter, and he’s young, got a lot of talent, good singer, and all the ladies love him …so I think he’s gonna go places. Let’s see who else is out there right now… there’s a great band called Sons of Bill. They’ve actually been around for quite a while at this point, but I still kinda consider them up-and-coming. They’re great; I think they should be a lot more famous than they are. Really great songwriters, and I love their production and the whole ball of wax.

In the past couple years there’ve been some artists getting mainstream acclaim and awards with virtually NO airplay, and decent sales to boot. No thanks to Nashville, in other words, Isbell, Sturgill & Stapleton are defying convention.  Are these apparent outliers reason for hope for the likes of Reckless Kelly?

Yeah, absolutely. It gives you hope to see somebody say with no real support from the mainstream at all come and makes such big splashes. You know, one minute, Sturgill Simpson was opening up for us out in L.A. and now two years later, you’re watching him on Jimmy Kimmel, and Fallon.

Letterman…

Letterman, yeah. Watching his songs climb up the charts and selling records, and selling out huge shows; doing two nights in a row at the biggest venue here in Austin. It’s awesome. It’s great to see guys who have some integrity and musical chops buck the system and make it work. And that comes back to one of the reasons we decided to give Thirty Tigers a shot, because they did so well with guys like him and Isbell. It’s good to know it still could happen, you know.

What did you think by the way, because you’re a pretty savvy social media guy… about Sturgill dropping elbows? First about the naming an award after Merle, and then on Garden and Gun… I thought it showed not only balls, but absolute integrity for him to say, you know, what the hell?

It’s a ballsy move to say something just that out there and honest, you know. I really respect what he said and how he said it. I think he’s right when he says these guys, the same people who wouldn’t play Merle Haggard on the radio or wouldn’t give him his last moment in the sun before he passed away, are all of the sudden, you know it’s kinda like seeing all the Cubbies hats all of the sudden. The Cubs are doing really well and everybody’s wearing the hat.

You know, Merle Haggard dies and everybody’s playing Merle all of the sudden; and some of us have been listening to him and playing him our whole lives. It’s not annoying really because it’s great to see him get recognized and obviously everybody’s bummed out that he’s gone, but it’s kind of a little late to the party and then to take an award and put his name on it and hand it to some of these people that he openly trashed.

And by the way I saw Jason Isbell, his first tweet, he’s like I don’t know what Sturgill said but I agree with him 100%. Then an hour later he’s like oh, I saw what Sturgill said and I still agree with him 100%.

(Laughs) That’s funny. I think he’s right on, and it’s a ballsy thing to say, especially when he’s probably in line to win some of those awards. He’s kind of biting the hand that feeds him but that’s kind of what being an outlaw’s always been about. It’s what Merle would have done.

Finally, your new album is out Friday. What’s in the works for a tour to support this record, and what are you doing next?

The first big tour we’ve got coming up after the album drops is going up the east coast with Mickey and the Motorcars for a couple weeks. And then right after that, Wade Bowen and I are going across the pond to England for about 10 shows in November, just the two of us. That should be interesting. And then, man, when I get back from that, I probably start writing again. We’re not exactly sure what our next project’s gonna be; it’s either gonna be another album or maybe a collection of outtakes and old stuff, like we were talking about earlier. We kinda need to circle the wagons again and figure out what we’re gonna do next ‘cause we’ve got a lot of ideas but just need to pick one. 


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 Sunset Motel will be available on Lonestar Music, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

*photos courtesy of Willy Braun's twitter account, Missing Piece, and ???

May 15, 2015

If Dallas Davidson Had Written These Americana Classics


If Dallas, or other bro-ish songwriters had penned these great Americana tunes...

Turtles All the Way Down
Every time I'm crankin' up my new green Raptor pickup truck
I'm chillin' like a villain cause I'm chromed out and so sweet and so fly
Grappler Nittos, LED, silver gearshift, and HIDs they all changed the game for me
But girl, the only thing I want's your ass tonight

Two More Bottles of Wine
Two guns on my back, tattoos lookin' fine
Haters on Twitter saying I'm out of line
But it's all right 'cause I'm so tight
And I got two more bottles of shine



Cover Me Up
So girl leave your Dukes by the bed/I'm bout to drop tha boom
Till there's an illegitimate child growing there in your womb

The Road Goes on Forever
Down farm road after midnight with some Jeremiah Weed
Drivin' drunk with a big ol' dip and Axe sprayed all over me
She's wearing those old Levis that show off suntanned skin
The bro goes on forever and the party never ends

Pancho & Lefty
Driving gravel roads my bro
Is gonna get your truck in dirt
While you wear your barbed wire tatt
And way too tight Ed Hardy shirt
You weren't your high school's smartest boy
But the most badass one it seems
You give every guy the mad-dog eyes
Never turn off your high beams

Pancho was a country boy
His Ford had flames and polished chrome
Wore his ripped-up studded jeans
To make the hotties sigh and moan
Pancho saw a bae so hot
Down at the Sonic parking lot
He stepped to her and spit some game
Took a Fireball shot

Oct 30, 2013

Robert Earl Reed: The FTM Interview

Robert Earl Reed:
The FTM Interview
By Jeremy Harris

In June of 2013, Robert Earl Reed spent nearly a month living with my family and I. During this time, he and my family all became very close as we shared stories, ate too much food and made frequent beer and whisky runs. Some of the best times we had did not involve music at all but just friends hanging out but we did find time to do an interview that I was going to hold onto until Robert had something big happen which we both thought would be his second album. Unfortunately, on October 5th, my wife received a phone call letting us know that Robert had passed. After several attempts to fight through the loss of my friend, I received the strength to sit down and listen to our interview and type it up to share. Goodbye friend...

FTM: I know you haven't been around it for a long time but how, in your opinion, has the music industry changed over the years?

RER: In my opinion? Well, obviously the internet has given a voice to anyone that has a connection. So whereas there used to be a lot of shade tree pickers that were never heard because they had to be on a label, now they can make their own music and practice their art through the miracle of what the internet is. So now they too can be heard and the whole dynamic has changed. The power is still with the record companies to a certain degree but a lot of it is more homogenous if that's the right word. Let's say it's more homegrown but look up homogenous before you type it.

FTM: I'll have to see how to spell it first.

RER: It's just accessibility for people to be heard. It's maybe not a wide audience but reaches worldwide. Then the other thing is that back then people paid for music and now people don't pay for music. As an independent act used to you'd make CD's to sell at your shows and that was the way you'd get your music distributed but now one of your buddies buys the cd and rips it for all the other ones. There's not a lot of money in the music business anymore for the artist.

FTM: You hear a lot of people talk about Texas music and I know you love it and some of your music fits the mold of Austin so what is the difference in Texas music and the music that comes from the other 49 states?

RER: Wow, that's a good question. Being as that the number of great songwriters that come out of Texas and what they pose as red dirt music.... (silence filled with sighs) To me Texas music is more of a thinking man's music than a lot of the music that comes from the rest of the United States and some of it, like Tom Russell draws from the Hispanic side of the music and then when you hear it you know you're hearing Texas music. You hear Ray Wylie Hubbard, Gurf Morlix or James McMurthy it all has a certain vibe to it that is not repeatable from other parts of the country and it's also indigenous from where they come from. You're gonna hear more blues influenced stuff coming from Mississippi and up into St. Louis and even deeper now and you're gonna hear more folk music up in Appalachia. It all just has its own vibe buy Austin is quickly coming the place for people like myself because Nashville is so just what it is and just completely overrun by the corporate crap. Really to get an audience to listen to you, you have to go somewhere like Austin because they have a lot of musically educated ears and they just hear something different.

FTM: So with all that in mind, how have you been influenced by the Texas sound?

RER: When I heard Gurf Morlix's song "Madeline's Bones" I knew those guys could just write. A lot of my song are dark ballads of just dark but guys like Gurf, and others they just have a certain groove they're able to put on it so while conveying a darkness of a song. Going back to "Madeline's Bones", there's a marimba in it but it's about a woman that was the leader of the United States atheist association and her and her son and granddaughter disappeared and for so long everyone though they had just absconded with the organizations money until they found the corpses of them. So by listening to them from a writing perspective especially I felt like I could approach subjects that were dark and didn't necessarily be about namedropping and getting drunk and all the other simplistic ideas behind a song and attack more complicated issues or messages in a song.

FTM: How long has it been since you've played a mandolin?

RER: Hmmm, probably about 4 months.

FTM: What kind of football season do you think Texas A&M will have this season?

RER: Probably an awesome one. They're an incredible addition to the SEC but I'm an Arkansas fan and I think teams like Missouri should move into one of those lesser conferences. (This was followed by an apology to members of the band Powder Mill)

FTM: Alright, so now that I'm done asking you all the questions I hope to one day ask Robert Earl Keen I'll get to the ones that are really for you. He's of course way too big to talk to us.

RER: Ah man, that hurts.

FTM: How long before we can expect to get a new Robert Earl Reed album?

RER: Well this is about the third interview I've given in the last year and I keep adding time to it. I've got probably 40 demos and the first one was all self financed but I'm not in a position to do that anymore. I do have some things on the line to help me finance this one and this won't cost nearly as much and I'm very excited about it. I'd say if things go right that I'll get it out before the end of the year. I've actually got a Christmas album that I've been writing that might come out before a regular album. It has a bunch of bent Christmas songs on it.

FTM: What is the moldiest part of your body?

RER: The moldiest part of my body would definitely have to be my mind. I can't remember shit, I need frequent naps and it's pretty enclosed because I stay alone a lot and it's just not open to the air. I'm sure there's some mold stuck up there.

FTM: What about being a street performer? Could you make money at that?

RER: With my clothes on or off?

FTM: Well shit, I'll just ask the next question. What percentage of that income would be considered prostitution?

RER: (laughs) Well first off, we're all prostitutes in some form of fashion. Second, if the naked cowboy can make a living, I can be the naked cowboy that they'd pay to put clothes back on. I'd probably make more money getting paid to put them on than busking. That's what they call it, busking or sitting on the sidewalk and playing. That is a fun thing to do especially if there's two of you and you can just jam out. I just played a thing recently at a local farmer's market and it was a lot of fun. They were feeding us lemonade with whisky and by the time we left we had this huge thing of organically grown vegetables. I'm all for bartering. It was almost more fun than going somewhere and getting paid. We did't even know what we were gonna get and these people just kept bringing these little gifts and stuff. The one good thing I do know is that I can eek a meal out each day with my music. There's an answer for you. It could be worse I could be in someones kitchen cleaning out an old bean pot and cooking them a dinner like now.  (Yes that's right, this entire interview took place in my kitchen while Robert was preparing gumbo for my family and I)

FTM: What has it been like to get to work with Jimbo Mathus?

RER: Jimbo is the Svengali, Jimbo is the catfish king. There's something magic about Jimbo in his personality, the way he carries himself and relates to people, in his myriad of musical styles and I've been really blessed to be one of the few people that he collaborates with. I've written a song on one album and on the next one I have a couple to be in the running to be on that album. I played in Jimbo's Mosquitoville band on the tenor banjo and just being able as an artist, especially since I didn't start until I was 40, getting a fast track lesson from someone like Jimbo has been great. He's the one that really instilled in me that it doesn't have to be note perfect and if you wanna play music you got to get your ass out and play. When I first started playing I had envisioned like everyone does, music is so much fun and this is going to be great and it was for about a week and then I went out on a couple of little tours with Jimbo and it was just turn and burn. I was thinking musicians get to go out to the party after and all the girls just hang around and you just drink and everything but no. You get done and you break down, get back into the van and head out and hope the damn thing doesn't break down and then you go do it the next night and the next and the next.

FTM: And forget where you are.

RER: Yeah, and forget where you are. To me Jimbo is the ghost of Jimmy Rodgers, the guy is a latin major, he makes marionettes and the marionettes are how he got into performing. He grew up in Mississippi and played in family bands and plays every stringed instrument and the trombone. He and I have a certain synergy together, our minds are on the same wavelength. We can be discussing something and the same thing will just come out of our mouths at the same time. It'll be some warped and crazy ass idea but it's funny how it'll come out. Him loving the delta and Mississippi so much and all the things he takes me to see on our delta jungle odysseys as we call them it's just cool.

FTM: What drugs have influenced you to put all those weird noises in some of your songs?

RER: I think the drug endorphin, which is a natural drug that your body and mind produces when you are being rewarded or something. If you listen to songs sometimes the unexpected sounds give you a high that you want to hear again. Instead of the same ole same ole that people have heard before because a lot of music is the same with new lyrics. When you get into the arrangement part of it like in "Carlene" there's a sweeping floor sound because they were sweeping the floor in the studio and there's a mule's jaw that we had there but I'd be lying if I didn't say marijuana didn't have a little something to do with it on occasion. But really we just get going and somebody will say let's just try this, it'll be really cool. I did a little music thing for a movie and they had this little organ that you had to pump and it was a real creepy carnival type thing so we put that in there and it's like creating on the fly since it doesn't have to be note perfect. If we're not cutting it as a band then it's drums, guitar and then me singing all at once and then we just layer the stuff in after. It's like painting with sound. So when I said the endorphins it's like a good song, it builds you up and builds you up and boom, it rewards your mind and then it pulls back and then builds you up and then boom, it rewards your mind. That way you'll want to hear it again.

FTM: So after we are done do I need to add some doors slamming and cats meowing to get your endorsement for this interview?

RER: Absolutely, I can guarantee the first time you hear a cat scream or Pines (my oldest son's 100 pound american bulldog and saint bernard mix. We call him an american bullnard for short.) holler after I've just unmounted him people will wonder what that is and it'll keep their ear.

FTM: What brand of guitar do you play?

RER: I normally play a Taylor and I have a Martin that I like to play but my favorite that I own, the one that if the house ever burns I'll leave my Taylor, Martin and my Guild and grab my little Silvertone guitar because I write most of my songs with it. It rides around in the truck with me and whenever I'm bored, have some time or an idea just comes I'll turn on the recorder on my phone and just grab the Silvertone and play a little bit.

FTM: How many different guitars have you owned over the years?

RER: Hahaha, that's funny. When I first started got into music I bought a shitload of guitars then I'd meet people and get drunk and start liking them and give them my guitar. I had a few of those but now that I'm broke and I know I don't have as many guitars...

FTM: I think I saw my boy carrying one of those guitars around yesterday.

RER: That was more of a pay it forward. It was one I had used for my son and it was time for it to go on. I don't like selling pay it forward stuff, it's better to give it to kids but all the others were just ignorance. I'd wake up the next morning and be like what the fuck did I do. (starts making crying noises) Why didn't somebody tell me not to do that?

FTM: If you had a guitar at that moment you could've written a great song about how you gave your guitar away.

RER: Oh man. Well yeah but now I've got a dulcimer and I love any stringed instrument. I took violin lessons when I was a kid but I still can't play a fiddle but I like stringed instruments a lot. I love the mandolin and a friend of mine even though I haven't met him yet made me a reso bow (I'm about 1% sure that is the correct spelling) and it's one of a kind mad by John Paul Cook who is a luthier out of Fayetteville and makes unbelievable guitars and ukuleles of all different varieties and woods. They're all resonator designs and he started talking to me about this time last year and I had just saw Luther of The North Mississippi Allstars do the "Shake em on Down" video where they were playing a diddley bow which comes from the olden days on the delta where people would hook a string to their shack and run a block up underneath it and stand on the other end to keep it tight then they'd take something and pluck it and run it up and down it. That's where the first diddley bow came from by my understanding then they started putting them on sticks with cans. I asked him if he (John Paul Cook) had ever thought of a diddley bow with a resonator on it and he hadn't so he made this thing he called the luna and it looks a banjo but it's a three stringed diddley bow that has a resonator cone and a pickup. It has a real unique sound when you plug it in and I'm in the process of learning to play it.

FTM: If you were about to go through a traumatic and possibly life altering event, what would be the one thing you'd have to do just before that experience?

RER: Well you know that's a loaded question since you already know the answer. (He now pauses to put some frozen meat in the microwave to thaw) And since you already know the question to what may or may not have happened I'll come up with a way to artfully answer this. (pauses for a few seconds to think) I would plumb my mind for a great release. Yeah, that's what I would do.

FTM: What's the worst thing you have ever found in a hotel while on the road?

RER: Well, thanks to when I first met you and a conversation we were having while I was staying in a cheap motel and either you or Amy (my wife) told me not to plug in a black light so I haven't found anything because I won't look. It does run through my mind when I check into these places now about the black light and I just go ahead and pull all the bedspreads off and I bring my own pillows, which are probably dirtier than the ones they have on there.

FTM: But it's your dirt.

RER: Right.

FTM: What's the worst thing that the cleaning lady may have found that you left behind?

RER: (looks away while smiling and giggling)

FTM: Oh good, there's an answer for this one.

RER: Well, hmm. There's a couple of things that come to mind but I don't really know that I want to put them out there. I can tell you off the record and then if people buy you or Trailer a drink if they see you at a show you can tell them about this and the real answer about the life changing event. Let me think about the worst thing on the record for a second.

FTM: There's no artful way of answering this one?

RER: Well, back when I was younger I was staying in the Tampa, Florida area and let's just say I had a girlfriend and she left one day before I did and left a sex toy there. I thought it would be funny to put it in the freezer and since there's a lot of elderly people that stay at this hotel I was thinking when they clean certainly they won't look in the freezer so one day the front desk phone will be ringing off the hook. That's one of the worse things I've left in a hotel.

FTM: On a scale of 9-10, how would you rate this interview?

RER: Oh, I'd give it a 10. It's definitely the most interesting one I've ever been asked to do.

FTM: On a scale of 1-2, how would you rate your career?

RER: Can I use a decimal point?

FTM: Uh, sure.

RER: I give myself about a 1.9999. I've accomplished so much in a short time and it's given me something tangible to live for. Not that 48 is old but when your kids grow up and start moving away you start looking around and saying what the fuck am I gonna do with the rest of my life? At least I now know that I have something that'll be around. Songs constantly come to me and some are good and some are not so good but they're always coming. I get tickled when I unlock one and play it for the first time and it becomes my new favorite song for a few days until I play it for some people and they ignore me. Then I shelf it and write another one.

FTM: If I wanted to introduce someone to the music of Robert Earl Reed, what song should I play?

RER: I'll answer this in two way. I don't set out to write a song that doesn't have some meaning to me. Like "Lazy Earl" is more of a folk thing and it's for an album I'm gonna call "7 deadly sins" and I'll have one song for each sin and that's the sloth one but if you wanna introduce someone to my music I think "Road to Hattiesburg" has been everyone's favorite and it kind of stands on its own because it's different. It was really interesting, we got in a studio that night and went to the bar down the street and found a guy that played slide guitar and pulled him in and it was all creation on the fly. And people always talk about the drums on that song, it's because the engineer that night had these overlay ideas of just hitting a bass drum and then having the cymbals wash in so that would be a good way to introduce them. If someone really wanted to see the real me the song "Reaper" which was one of the first songs I ever wrote. To a great degree it is who I am and to a great degree where I am. I fight chronic depression and when I'm on I'm on but when I'm off I'm off and you know that's just a fact of life. To me if you can't look at the underbelly of life, how do you know anything else is beautiful?

FTM: Has there ever been a song that you were a part of that you regretted and wish it had never been released?

RER: No, not yet. How about "Honky-tonk Badonkadonk"? Or wait, what's that new song I hate so bad?

FTM: How could you choose just one?

RER: "Buzz Kill". I wouldn't mind killing whoever's buzz wrote that song. Of course they're probably sitting around drinking champagne while I'm drinking PBR and cooking you some gumbo. They're out partying it up with Colt Ford somewhere and laughing at everyone else.

FTM: Is it hard for you to be a creepy old man or does it just come natural?

RER: I didn't know I was quite that creepy and on the river yesterday they were hollering Duck Dynasty at both of us if you remember correctly but I think they had me confused with Uncle Si.

FTM: David Allan Coe was the Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, Willie Nelson is the Redheaded Stranger and Hank Sr was Luke the Drifter so is there any chance you'll go by The Croc Footed Country Singer?

RER: Nope, Nope, Nope. Just call me The Shade-tree Clergyman.

FTM: This isn't an interview question but something stinks. Did you fart?

RER: No but it could be the wind kicking the breath back into your face.

FTM: I normally like to ask some fan questions at the end of my interviews.

RER: Oh ok.

FTM: Sorry but I asked everyone I know and none of them know who you are.

RER: They didn't even have any questions for Robert Earl Keen?

FTM: Yes they did but I already asked them so I guess that's it.


---------------
Note: This interview is mostly unedited.

May 7, 2013

Little Known Facts: May '13



LL Cool J's next single will be titled "Accidental Sellout".

Justin Moore only wears a cowboy hat for one reason. To protect his soft spot.

If you stare into a mirror and repeat "Little Debbie" three times, Gary Levox will appear.

The Brantley Gilbert fact for this month has been edited out by Trailer due to not being offensive enough.

The only two boobs in music bigger than those belonging to Dolly Parton 
are the two singing in Florida Georgia Line.

Curb Records is no longer adding new artists to its roster, only lawyers.

While savingcountrymusic.com has been accused of hacking one time, 
farcethemusic.com is accused of being written by hacks daily.

94% of all Robert Earl Reed music that is purchased is by people 
attempting to buy a Robert Earl Keen album.

Travis Tritt still receives counseling due to his emotional scars from an early 90's feud with Billy Ray Cyrus.

The Zac Brown Band's tour bus sleeps 20. The remaining band members usually get a hotel.

The reward for taking a picture of Jamey Johnson crying in public 
is you get beaten to death by Jamey Johnson.




Thanks to Jeremy Harris for most of these.

Dec 22, 2012

Saturday Night Christmas Music: Robert Earl Keen

I have probably posted this before and will definitely post it again. Why wouldn't I?

Dec 18, 2010

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