by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
What: Band of Horses and Arizona
When: March 10
Where: Café 11 in St. Augustine
In the grunge days of the early nineties every band talked about being influenced by Neil Young, but for the most part they were talking about his off-kilter guitar solos and dirty distortion. The big moments were when Neil used Pearl Jam as his backup band or toured with some young indie rock band. These days we’ve seen an influx of Neil Young-inspired bands that focus more on his vocal timbre and the deeply introspective aspects of his haunting tunes.
Although The Flaming Lips led this pack, because they started it early on, they are not exactly toting that banner these days as they strive to create more experimental sounds and move more into the crazy Fat Albert funk of At War with the Mystics. But don’t worry, because new groups are mobilizing to pick up the slack. My Morning Jacket is often cited as the new Neil Young, but the truth is that while My Morning Jacket has the vocal timbre, they lack the core rock essential that defined Neil Young for several generations. Band of Horses, however, has the vocals without dropping the rest of that banner.
Hailing from South Carolina, these southern boys know how to walk the line between today’s indie rock and yesteryear’s classic compositions. I caught up with the songwriter for this Sub Pop outfit, Ben Bridwell, and talked about Georgia fans playing in Gator country.
EU: What makes a Band of Horses show stand apart from the music on the album?
BB: I guess we are a bit more spontaneous and you can see more personality. It’s not as serious as you might think, since the album seems more serious. Hopefully. Maybe awkward? Horny? I don’t know.
EU: How does a usual band practice start?
BB: Well, it’s funny because we have these three core group members and we go over new songs. Now we have three new guys and we haven’t practiced with all six of us together yet. The others are coming in this weekend and it will be a loud few hours of good times.
I’m really excited about them. One of them is the bassist from Archers of Loaf. He’s super funny. The new keyboardist is a guy I grew up with playing baseball in Irma, South Carolina, so he’s a good old friend with us on this tour. Robin Herringer is someone I’ve known for years. He used to play with Carissa’s Wierd. I’m really familiar with them and excited because I know we’ll get along really well.
EU: Do you have a constant source of inspiration?
BB: Yeah. I guess my constant source is just being totally alone in the house, or wherever, and just messing around with my equipment. Getting stoned and mixing weird sounds. Mostly solitude would be my main source of inspiration.
EU: What is the Seattle music scene like these days?
BB: It’s kind of intimidating at first. When we got there we were super homeless and broke and the thought of being a professional band seemed like the big shiny promise at the top of the mountain. We didn’t think it would really happen, but when we got it going, it went pretty well. It seemed really crowded and hard to break into the scene but that worked out in the end for us.
EU: Looking back at being homeless in Seattle compared to touring the world with Band of Horses, do you think of any particular moment as being the definitive transitional instant? Is there a made for TV movie in there somewhere?
BB: We played two shows with Iron and Wine, we had only played four small shows before that, we were so new it was hard to tell what was going on, but it felt, for the first time, that we were really on to something.
EU: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips recently spoke out about Neil Young’s tendency to put out mediocre albums. Personally I think that when Neil is brilliant, he’s so brilliant it outshines anything anyone else has ever recorded. How do you feel about Neil Young’s albums?
BB: Yeah totally. I hadn’t heard that about Wayne, but with Neil Young, sometimes in hindsight those albums can grab you later. After you let it steep a little. I like all Neil Young’s records. I didn’t get to into the Living with War thing, but I’ll come back to it one day and really feel it.
EU: What are you most excited about this tour?
BB: I’m most excited to be with this hilarious group of people. And my girlfriend’s coming, so it will be hilarious good times. It will show on stage too; we’re gonna have such a blast.
Catch Band of Horses with Arizona at Café Eleven in St. Augustine on March 10th. Tickets are only $10. Contact Café Eleven at 904-460-9311 for more information.
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