Beau Jennings and the Holy Tulsa Thunder – S/T (Murkville Music)
Alt-country is all kinds of popular these days and as such there are a plethora of fancy-pants New Yorkers jumping on the bandwagon making music these days that isn’t quite country music and as such can be enjoyed by a gaggle of indie rockers. At first sight, Beau Jennings is one more of those fellas - a fancy lad Brooklynite who is so down-home that he still rocks a beard and has pictures taken with his dog and while canoeing on his MySpace. A deeper look reveals a much more impressive picture of an Oklahoma native with a penchant for occasional J Mascis like vocals over pleasant harmonies with just the right amount of piano. On his first solo album without his regular band Cheyenne, Jennings starts off very strongly both musically and lyrically with ‘Holy Tulsa Thunder’ and the pace only picks up ambling along quite nicely for the next few songs, peaking with the fourth track, ‘The Opolis’. Jennings’ songs tell stories at times and are poetic musings at other times. The highlight of the album, ‘San Juan Capistrano’ is probably the best example of the latter with lyrics like “And now my richest gain can only count for loss/I can’t stop shaking through the Stations of the Cross/I tip the bottle up I watch the spirits flow/They flow through San Juan Capistrano”. The album is terrifically pleasant with hints of all sorts of other alt-country and singer songwriter type bands and although there are a handful of weaker songs (musically more than lyrically) it really is a terrific rookie solo release. –Andrew Fersch
Beau Jennings Interview
Recent move to Brooklyn from Oklahoma? Why? How has it impacted things?
I moved for a number of personal reasons, but I was also excited to come to New York and play music. It was a leap of faith in a way, as we sort of had to start over as a band. We had to get a lot more intentional with everything we do. You just have to work a little harder, plan a little farther ahead.
You do a lot of writing for Cheyenne too, correct? So why a solo project then? It’s not that different style wise.
The first few Cheyenne releases were basically solo projects. As in all the songs and arrangements were my ideas, backed by a rotating cast of musicians. When Cheyenne released “The Whale” last December, we had become more of a true band with fixed members. I still wrote the lyrics and did a lot of the arranging but it was much more of a collaboration. And songs that we’ve been writing for the next Cheyenne album are almost entirely collaborative. So even if the results sound similar, the process can be very different.
At the same time I’d been writing songs that, at the time at least, didn’t seem to fit in the direction Cheyenne was going. It made sense to make the distinction, both to allow Cheyenne to benefit from true collaboration and to let me feel the freedom to follow any sort of direction that I may be inspired to follow.
You said that the move to Brooklyn has “made us stronger” as a band - how so? How did it affect your solo ambitions?
We were forced to get organized. There are so many logistical problems for a band in Brooklyn that makes little to no money at a show. My solo ambitions didn’t really spring up until I felt like Cheyenne had a nice foundation and direction it was heading in.
Your album seems to have two parts, the part that sounds like alt-country and then the catchier radio-friendly songs, was this done on purpose to appeal to the Cheyenne and country fans and then also possibly to help with commercial success? If not, what influenced you to have these different styles? I ask this because a handful of the songs don’t really seem to fit with the rest of the feel of the album.
None of that stuff is pre-meditated. You just write the songs and put them on an album. Certainly you select some and reject others, but they made the most sense as a group of songs and in the order they were placed on the album. I am aware some songs are more radio-friendly than others, but the balance felt right when sequencing the record.
Everything I’ve read about you so far solo wise focuses on the Sufjan Stevens connection with your band, how do you feel about this focus on the musicianship instead of the song writing?
I’m friends with lots of musicians, and many are well known to some degree or another. Sometimes a connection will get your foot in the door, but if you have nothing to say of your own they’ll kick you right back out. So if it someone who is a fan of someone I’m connected to checks out my songs then I’m thrilled, but each artist has to stand on their own merit.
What’s most important to you as a solo artist musically? How about as a member of Cheyenne?
Staying honest is the number one goal. Any artist, no matter what their medium is, knows immediately if they’re lying, so I try to focus on this. People don’t have time to waste listening to someone try to fool them, and I hope anything I do, or am a part of, is something a listener can trust. The same is true for being in Cheyenne.
You are touring with Cheyenne coming up, will you be playing both groups of music, or just Cheyenne material?
It still remains to be seen, but I feel very comfortable playing with Cheyenne and have great respect for the guys in the band, so it’s likely that they will be my band when I go out to promote the solo album. That being said if we can coordinate a tour with all the guys that helped make the record than that would be a blast as well. Either way I feel very fortunate to play with the people I’ve been able to.