by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
What: Brett Dennen with Christina Wagner
When: January 22nd @ 8:45PM
Where: Jack Rabbits
If you’re still listening to Bob Dylan because you’ve lost the hope of finding a new folk hero, it’s time to throw off the shackles of hopelessness and seek out the sound of Brett Dennen. His sound is comforting and androgynous, youthful with an edge of age. His lyrics speak to the best and worst we have in ourselves, always with hope just in the background. Although his influences are many, (Dennen sites Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell and The Beatles) he is utterly distinctive. Listening to him can be a life-changing experience, something that is better heard than described.
EU recently got a chance to talk with Dennen about his unique sound. He’s been rapidly rising in popularity since he started tackling singing and songwriting as a career just after college. He decided to make performing a career based on the high he gets from singing and song writing. Says Dennen: “I started writing songs and people started to really enjoy them and…it felt really good to sing them…It was an epiphany because other people were having the same reactions that I was having when I wrote [the songs]. I just never had so much joy creating anything…Writing a song for me was the ultimate…you get a buzz when you’re creating.”
And song isn’t the only thing Dennen can create, he also creates art on paper, particularly watercolors. Both of his album covers feature his art. “I always pick watercolors as the kind of art that I put into an album mostly because I think the medium of water color best describes what I try to do with music…The medium is very dreamy, it’s open, there’s a lack of control. There’s only a certain amount of control you can have in watercolors…When you touch a sopping wet brush to wet paper, color just goes all over the place and you can’t really control that…so your painting, a lot of it is just up to chance, whatever happens on the page you just have to go with it…I think it partners well with my music.”
Dennen’s biggest boost in popularity came when three of his songs were part of three episodes on ABC, once on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and on two different episodes of Men in Trees. This led to a spike in sales on i-Tunes, where he had the largest amount of downloads in the folk genre. Dennen describes the surreal nature of hearing a song in the context of a hit television show: “When you write a song, it’s very personal…It’s your song…The context that you write the song in, I think that sticks with you, and then when you hear your song play on a television show…then the song takes on a completely different meaning, a meaning that I had no idea was going to be conveyed…It’s almost like the song took off and traveled around the world, met people and grew and developed…then it comes back and it stands right in front of you, the same person but different, with a new meaning and a new message. That’s a really good feeling because it’s not your song anymore—it’s everybody’s song.”
Dennen sometimes sings about ugly things, but he transforms them into something beautiful by singing about them, writing some of his best work when he employs imagery in song. “Every song I write about is about hope,” says Dennen “and you can’t have hope without some kind of a struggle, some kind of a mess, some kind of ugliness...I try to find beauty in the struggle.” Become a new convert to his music by coming out to see him on January 22nd at 8:45PM at Jack Rabbits
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