Austin Sound

Chris Brecht’s long-awaited 2008 debut, The Great Ride, raked in folk and country roots behind the local songwriter’s winding narratives and distinctive nasally drawl. Brecht’s tunes reel with the lure of the late night open highway, steeped in a poignant and personal loneliness and longing, braced against a wonder for the road. Since The Great Ride’s release, Brecht has expanded his band and sound, and while his characteristic Dylanisms remain strong in the new material, the Dead Flowers buck with a more polished country rock vibe in the vein of the Band or Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds, folding in impressive flourishes from the group that includes, among others, Ricky Ray Jackson (Lomita; Brothers and Sisters) on pedal steel and John Michael Schoepf of the Happen Ins. Chris Brecht and the Dead Flowers will be holding down the Belmont downtown next week on Wednesday, September 9, and they’ve offered up a taste of some of their new material below in the form of both a lo-fi demo and full band take in the studio.

Profile: Chris Brecht and the Dead Flowers

Year Formed:

This band has morphed a lot over the last three years. We didn’t really give it a name until about 8 months ago. “The Dead Flowers” or Chris Brecht and the Dead Flowers. It’s homage to some of our influences. But around that time the music and musicians ideas became fully realized. That’s when the sound became realized. Before that time we were just scrappy. Good musicians playing a bunch of leads over a folk songs. Now we have a sound.

Members/Instruments played:

Chris Brecht guitar and harmonica. Scott Davis – lead guitar, Ricky Ray Jackson – pedal steel, Matt Mollica – Hammond organ / Wurlitzer, John Michael Schoepf – Bass, Stephen Bres - Drums/Percussion

Former Bands/Side Projects:

I personally have never really had a side project in town and out other than my solo travels. I got pegged a lot as a Dylan follower. I started to feel like Woody Guthrie when I traveled out of state. It was very rough and lonely. Driving around and sleeping on sofas of people you didn’t know. I’d say it was romantic, but nothing is romantic when you’re poor.

As for the rest of the band… Scott Davis, John Michael Schoepf and Ricky Ray all play with Hayes Carll. That is fully realized outlaw country music of a new age with a sense of humor. Ricky and John Michael however also have this retro bluesy band called the Happen Ins. The music is hip. It’s pretty slick.

Matt Mollica has always played Hammond with me, but he has also recently found a spot in Deadman

Albums:

We released The Great Ride in 2008, Dead Leaf Records. That was pretty much necessity. There comes a time when you just have to put out a record so you can move on with your life. That was the great ride. The end of something for me. It was a fun record to make.

But making records these days can be something that you do on a laptop in your bedroom, or you wait for the opportunity to get into a studio. I opted to wait only because I wanted to record everyone in the band at once. We did it live. The record was very spontaneous and there was a lot of risk involved. And we came out with a record that sound great. And very “Basement Tapes”. I even got a letter yesterday in the mail from someone in Provenance, RI that said he really dug the records warmth. That’s what a lot of people say about it. I wanted people to feel like they were listening to a band rather than a record where a producer gets there greedy little fingers all over it.

Brad Rice was great in helping us organize our band. He knows how a band is supposed to sound.

Influences:

I could come at this question from a few different angles.

In childhood, I was stuck on 60s radio. I listened to the Turtles, Dion, Dylan, the Stones, Tommy James and the Shondells, the Beatles, Johnny Rivers, Del Shannon, the Crystals. Top Billboard hits,.. ya know!

But my more real influences got absorbed in me when I decided music meant more to me than something to just dream about. Writers appeared, like Hemingway, Kerouac, Gary Snyder, TS. Eliot, Virginia Wolf, J.D. Salinger. The people that put images on paper for me and, inevitably, in my mind. This happened when I was in my late teens early twenties. I was listening Dylan, Whiskeytown, Radiohead, Tim Buckley, Peter Wolf, Huffamoose, Old 97s, Spiritualized. Musically, it was pretty broad and that’s why I’ve had to go through each piece of the puzzle and see why it’s there. I had to really figure out how these bands are connected in my head.

This band, The Dead Flowers, I had to think about for a while and see what we sounded like. And we are really nothing like Texas music. We’re more like an L.A. based Rollins Stones (Beggars Banquet era) with alt-country minds and a Tweedy influenced front man. With this new record, folk music is going to be way in the distance.

Strangest comment or comparison ever made about your music:

I saved the piece of paper. It was jammed in my pocked by some crazy German man’s girlfriend after a show in Oklahoma. He kept yelling at me in German from across the room. It reads: “you sound like one of those guys jumpin’ on a freight train… one of those old-timey guys. (it’s dated) 8-25-07”

Favorite local bands:

Happen Ins, Hayes Carll, Leatherbag, the Trishas. I usually make it out to see my friends the most. I have to forget about some bands. I watch my friends a lot.. Leo Rondeau and the Moonpies.

Favorite local venue:

This is a tough question.. There is liability at stake. Right now we’re playin’ some shows at the Belmont. I dig it there. It’s open air and really chic. It feels good. But for a long time I was pretty obsessed with the Hole in the Wall for its open rafters; it’s history, and it’s attentive crowd that always has a good time. I can’t wait to play there again.

Upcoming shows scheduled:

Belmont September 9th @ 9PM. I’m doing a lot of writing for this new record. Even though I already have a lot of songs to choose from. I get started and can’t stop. That being said, I have canceled a September tour through New Mexico and Colorado to get this new record done. I can’t think about traveling right now. I need to be home and writing.

Shows over the next month that you’re excited to see:

Yes.. I can’t wait to see this band called The Fruit Bats.

Some of your favorite albums from the past year:

By far, I was pretty taken back by Doug Burr’s “On Promenade.” But my friend Gregory Alan Isakov (from Boulder, Colorado) put out a record called “That Sea, the Gambler” which I found to be poetic and emotional. It’s a very intimate record that I’ll keep.

Ideal band (past or present) to open for on a national tour:

For a long time I’ve been told by friends that we should open for the Old 97s. I agree. They’re a fun band with good honest energy. They’re not old and trying to make everyone believe that they are still young. They are still young.

Course, if we got a phone call to jump on the Wilco train. I’d have to hold my head underwater for a while.

Austin Sound questions:

So what kind of Dead Flowers are you, and how exactly did you die?

We’re definitely flowers that have been scattered for a purpose, and not those that have been left in a vase to die. Can flowers be emotional? I think so. That’s what we are.

What can y’all tell us about the new album, especially in relation to the debut?

Yeah, I can. We’re really a different band now than we were before. Before I used to write songs and have the band learn them. We’d come out with this 60s Dylan thing. Very loose. With the element of folk lyrics and folk songs. It was too obvious. It was ramblin’. That’s gone now.

Now, we’re much better dressed. And so are the songs. We don’t just fall into place. We put ourselves there inside the song. So the music waits and we could be transplanted into some retro L.A. scene.

Song Introduction:

I’ve attached 2 songs.

One is a LoFi demo for the new record, a song called “Don’t take it so Hard.” The other is “Somewhere in Oregon” which will probably be the one “country” song on the record.

“Don’t take it so hard” - So, as I said, I’m going to offer up a demo for the new record. It’s just me playing on this one right now, but it won’t be that way when we release it. It’s a song that I nearly lost in the stack of papers because, for the most part, I write all the time. A lot of songs get lost. But I found it and I’m not afraid of it. I’d like people to hear it.

“Somewhere in Oregon” - Shortly after the Great Ride, I was asked by a man named David Gremmels from the Rogue Creamery in Oregon to write a song that he could place in the background of a documentary on the creamery. He asked for a song like “Readin’ My Mind” or “A song about lightbulbs”. It was my first time ever writing for someone else. But it remained very personal to me. So I wrote this song “Somewhere in Oregon”, the band is kind of sounding like Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It’s a country song. A love song. We all wanted it that way. I really liked the idea of writing a country song about Oregon. I have a lot of friends up there now. It’s a great place to escape to.

Sound Off:

Walking round

like it’s kingdom come

in an empty city with a

violent hum

I’ve fallen through windows

been kicked out in the rain

thinkin’ about you causes me so much pain..

You people are crazy

you just talk about fears

and walk around with cell phones

stuck in your ears.

I’m not afraid to be hungry

or go it alone

that’s why I lived in that motel

with just a rotary phone

and everything I had

was stuffed under the bed

and at night when I woke

up from my dreams I wished

I was dead.

I was looking for you but

you’re so hard to resist

there must be some kinda pill for this.

You think that I’m wounded

but it’s my soul that bleeds.

cause you’re judging a man

by the brand of his jeans.

I don’t get a job or say it’s the

end cause you can’t even

pretend to know

where I’ve been….

The Dead Flowers are making music that has an air of L.A. Chic Alternative Country. We still record on tape. We still like to record live in the studio. There is a natural air to that. I’m going to change that up a bit this time. Certain members of the band play best when they’re hearing things for the first time. And others play better when they plan. I’ve realized this over time. So if we’re going to make the best record possible, then we need to take this into consideration when recording. You can’t over think it. You have to present the music in it’s most fashionable light.

I have a hard time referencing sounds for what this record will sound like, but in this band each member plays a role. Ricky, for example, is in charge of the ambient sounds, the foliage. He plays the pedal steel and he can do some pretty unnatural things with it. You can have an acoustic song that needs some sort of Tom Waits earth underneath it. See. Beneath. Records should have their angels and their demons. If a record has got too many demons, it’s just ugly. It’s got to have beauty to express the real conflict. Tom Waits is the best at this.

So then when you make music chic. You know. Dress it all up with the right tones and spaces. That’s when it says what the band is supposed to say. Everyone is all dressed up and singing the same thing.

Mp3:
Somewhere in Oregon
Don’t Take It So Hard

Websites:
www.chrisbrecht.com
Myspace