With three excellent albums put out in the past year, Leatherbag has emerged as one of the best songwriters in a town where such praise is not lightly given. Last year’s Love Me Like the Devil EP grabbed our attention with its meloncholic elequoence and proved to be one of the best local folk albums of the year. His latest release and first full-length, Nowhere Left to Run, was put out last week on Superpop Records and expands on his songs’ sound with the help of his talented backing band the Cows. While the album jumps off with an unmistakeable (and impressively executed) nod to Dylan, the ten tracks only further solidify Leatherbag’s reputation as one of Austin’s best young songwriters. Leatherbag will be performing Saturday January 13th with Ralph White, Graham Weber and the Archibalds at Ego’s.
Profile: Leatherbag
Year Formed:
this project has been around since 2001. it started in Houston with home recordings of me playing everything and was very much an indie songwriter kind of thing. the move to austin in 2006 is where the project changed to what it is now, well… that and years of finding chords that suit my ideas, finding my voice and discovering the singer- songwriters of the 1970’s.
Members/Instruments played:
current line-up:
leatherbag - classical and electric guitar
seth gibbs - drums/trumpet/producer (plays and produces on all my records)
joey thompson - electric guitar/banjo/mandolin
peter stafford - bass
Former Bands/Side Projects:
i have performed and recorded with the following people in 2006:
david israel
karrie hopper
john rose
lonnie eugene methe
Albums:
So Long, Sweethearts EP (out of print) Superpop Records, March 2006
Love Me Like The Devil EP Superpop Records, August 2006
Nowhere Left To Run Superpop Records, Janaury 2007
Influences:
Townes Van Zandt
Simon Joyner
Loudon Wainwright III
Smog
Strangest comment or comparison ever made about your music:
someone once compared my songs to those of the band, Wire. i really like Wire, especially Pink Flag and 154, but i don’t really see it. a strange but welcomed comparison.
Favorite local bands:
Ethan Azarian
Yellow Fever
Favorite local venue:
Beerland
Upcoming shows scheduled:
january 13th-Ego’s w/ Ralph White, The Archibalds and Graham Weber
january 18th-The Cavern in Dallas, TX w/ The Cartwrights
january 24th-Headhunters w/ The Lonesome Heroes
january 28th-The Peacock w/ TBA
Shows over the next month that you’re excited to see:
Dosh
Grand Champeen
Knife In The Water
Some of your favorite albums from the past year:
Simon Joyner and The Fallen Men - Skeleton Blues
Cat Power - The Greatest
Ideal band (past or present) to open for on a national tour:
Red House Painters
Austin Sound questions:
Three albums in one year is pretty impressive. Do you see them as reflecting different styles/modes/goals or working all together as a whole, and how so exactly?
the central idea is what a person once described to me as the ’shotgun effect’, meaning that if you shoot enough times, you are bound to kill something. my hope is to release a record whenever i feel that i have a group of songs that i am excited about and i feel that i have challenged myself both musically and lyrically. i just want to constantly write and maybe, just maybe a song will come out that will live much longer than i will. there is a lot of work still left to do and many new ideas still left to discover. here is where i want to thank Superpop Records for giving their time, love, and support to me.
So we can think of several possible “interpretations” of the name Leatherbag - How did you come up with the name and how do you see it relating to your music (if at all)?
band names, in my mind, are trivial. the name is just as interpretational as ‘iron and wine’ or ‘peter and the wolf’, but it does appear in Joyces’ Finnegan’s Wake. there is some rant about Leatherbag Reynolds, which is my last name and i just ran with it. i can’t recall the exact phrase or the page number that it is on.
Song Introduction:
“My Sister” is a song that is just a series of stanzas that stem from dreams i have or have not had. i definitely wanted a Blonde On Blonde kind of appeal to the song and thankfully i have a band capable of such a thing, if there is one. James Tate, Diane Wakoski, and Bob Dylan had a lot to do with this.
Mp3s:
From Nowhere Left to Run:
My Sister
No More California
From Love Me Like the Devil:
Tennessee
Websites:
Myspace
