Power-Pop and Americana Music
Nashville,
TN November 2012—Jesse and Noah Bellamy are a brother duo, and just
as other classic brother groups (The Louvin Brothers, The Everlys, The
Kinks, et al.) who have forged their own unique sound and identities,
Jesse and Noah are also pushing musical boundaries to create their own
path.
With their third record, Driven Back (due out on January 8,
2013), the duo delivers an eclectic mix of roots-rock, power-pop,
country and Americana. Coming from a family of musicians they are the
fourth generation to play music. Their father and uncle are the
well-known Bellamy Brothers and their grandfather, Homer, played
professionally at local dances, while his father before him was a
fiddler.
Raised by their grandparents while their parents toured,
the duo was first influenced by their grandparents’ love of traditional
country music and the popular music of the WWII era. “When we started
playing guitar”, said Jesse, “we fell in love with blues, jazz and
sixties rock. Hanging out at Dad’s recording sessions, led us to develop
an appreciation of the recording process as an art form.”
After
years of writing and recording with different record labels and becoming
disillusioned with Music Row of Nashville, Jesse and Noah have thrown
away the rulebook to forge their own sound. Driven Back is self-produced
and independently released. Recorded at their project studio in
Franklin, TN (just outside of Nashville), they were very conscience of
keeping the project authentic and not over-produced.
Both
brothers wrote the songs on the record (the exception being “You Could
Have Had It All” which was written by Jesse Bellamy with Steve
Clark)—with most of the songs being written as they recorded them,
unlike previous projects. Accomplished multi-instrumentalists, they’re
responsible for the majority of the tracks on Driven Back, with vocals
led by Jesse, with Noah harmonizing. As Jesse told the music website
Riveting Riffs, “We just really wanted to make a good record…these songs
don’t have to work outside the context of this record. That is the cool
thing about a lot of them. It was just about feels and putting words up
against them and seeing what stuck.”
The 10 tracks on the album
start with “Weather Man”, an up-tempo folk rock tune (featuring the
violin of Elin Palmer). “True Love Doesn’t Beg” features a Latin-infused
‘exotica’ styled murder ballad that features guitar in the style of
Link Wray. “Lilly Vereen” is a Southern Gothic themed waltz set in New
Orleans. Once again Elin Palmer is featured on nyckelharpa, a
traditional Swedish keyed violin, with Noah on auto-harp adding to the
chamber-folk aesthetic. (Side note: the lyrical imagery was inspired by
photographer E.J. Bellocq’s famous “Storyville” portraits from around
1912.)
The title song, “Driven Back” is a garage blues tune that
features over-driven feedback laden guitars, while “You Could Have Had
It All” jumps to a retro country-pop ballad with an interesting dual
vocal harmony. “Traveler’s Prayer” uses ukulele to bring us a roots
reggae inspired song while “Bend in the Road” is tribute to the 70’s
country-pop of Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb.
Trying to re-create
what their grandfather’s band may have sounded like, the brothers came
up with “The Homer Bellamy Centennial Blue Yodel”. Influenced by early
country artists like Jimmie Rodgers, Frank Hutchison, and Cliff
Carlisle, the instrumentation was inspired by the pre-bluegrass 1930’s
‘hillbilly’ music.
“Florida Water” is homage to their
much-maligned home state, combining southern musical traditions with the
Latin-Caribbean cultural influences of the Peninsula. “Guilty of
Myself” ends the record with a stripped down semi-acoustic ballad.
Fans
are of great importance to the brothers and their past records have
built a huge following in Texas, with their debut project Nowhere
Revisited being based out of Fort Worth and with the Smith Music Group.
Their first single, “Daddy’s got a Shot Gun” made the Texas Music
Chart’s top 50 songs of 2006. Their second release, Landfall generated
fans from Texas to Tennessee and in between and even charted on the
HotDisc Top 40 in Europe.
Traditionally, brother duos have been
some of the most creative and innovative in the history of Rock and
Country Music—Jesse and Noah are willing and able to live up to that
tradition. With Driven Back, the brothers are proving that they are
self-sufficient artists who can cross genres and gain fans simply
through hard work, good music and great songs.