Okay, maybe it's really their first album, if you consider that this band's 1997 debut was released under the name Suicide Kings, until some California malcontents also known as the Suicide Kings forced Connole and his cohorts to get a new handle. For a short time, that new moniker was Lucky Ofay and the Gray Boys, until popular demand forced a second ballot, and Connole settled on the appropriately spooky name The Revenants.
In a way, it's fitting that this upcoming Epiphany Records release, titled Artists and Whores, is the country-rock quartet's first under this name, because Connole and Taylor refer to this album as a new beginning, a watershed for the band. When Rigsby steps outside to tell them he's ready to do some tracking, Connole points to the producer/engineer and says, "He's the guy you oughta be talking to."
Connole and Taylor are careful not to insult Andy Barrett, who produced the Suicide Kings album. But it's clear that they feel the first album didn't capture the band's live energy, a feeling confirmed by fans who've told them the songs sound much better live.
Actually, in its own stark, roughhewn way, the Suicide Kings album was an impressive achievement. With that album, Connole, the 43-year-old veteran of popular rock bands like The Strand, the guy whose talent always seemed at war with his capacity for self-destruction, served notice that he had re-emerged at the other end of a dark tunnel with clear-eyed songs of regret and humorous desperation. The vintage country sound fit the new, mature Connole like a glove, particularly on tracks like the poignant "King for a Day" and the rocking "Even Hookers Say Goodbye." But it's easy to see why Connole says that with the new Revenants album, he feels that he's been produced for the first time.
"Clarke is a real producer, which I think is rare," Connole says. "I've been in all kind of weird situations, and I've run into a lot of guys that said they were producers. But he knows the music. As a band, you can get the songs to a certain level. It sounds good in clubs, and your friends are all, 'Oh, wow, that's really cool.' But Clarke makes it sound like a grown-up record."
It's easy enough to hear what he means. On this final day of recording, Connole is fixing a vocal for the song "Blood River." Weeks earlier, on his first attempt, he had slipped into an overly twangy country affectation, or, as he puts it, "pressed the hick overload button." As he steps behind the mike to attempt a new, straighter version, the differences between albums one and two immediately become apparent.
"Blood River" was one of the lesser tracks on the first album, a plain, demo-ish recording that cried out for ornamentation. In its new, remodeled incarnation, the guitars shimmer like the desert sun, and a wicked Dobro guitar solo lifts this fast shuffle to its intended plane of profound tragedy.
As he records his vocal, Connole jokes at his occasional miscues, chalking up a botched note to "the wayward phlegm" and later describing a vocal crack as "that puberty thing, that Brady Bunch thing."
The rough mixes I hear offer proof that The Revenants are blossoming as a band at precisely the point when they have the right studio guidance. One of Connole's favorite cuts, the melodic gem "Marie," particularly benefits from the Rigsby touch, with washes of pedal-steel guitar, a jolting Hammond B-3 organ solo, and a Dobro rave-up at the coda. A more somber track, "The Prodigal," features a brief but gorgeous violin intro and tells the story of a repentant son who returns home to find that he "waited too long to set things right." The song climaxes with another burst of recording inspiration: a group choral that Connole calls the "drunken chorus" ending.
While it's easy to read Connole's own story between the lines of "The Prodigal," like most effective writers, he's mixing imagination and personal experience to create something more potent and universal than either would alone.
"I have this character in my head, who this guy is, who does what he does," Connole says of his songs. "We were talking about this yesterday when we were gonna do this one particular cover. It was a Leonard Cohen song, and it had a very poetic line in it: 'I took the dust from the long sleepless night, and put it in your little shoe.' And I go, 'The guy that sings all those other fucking songs, he wouldn't say that.'"
This week, Freudian Slip bassist Paul Schneider officially joins The Revenants, replacing Scott Kalkbrenner, who decided that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Schneider's use of standup bass should push the band deeper into the true heart of country music, a dark, brooding place where Hank Williams once hung his 10-gallon hat. Connole understands the essense of great country, and that's why he's so disdainful of the pap emanating these days from Nashville.
It's taken him several years, and many dark days along the way, but he now has the assured look of someone who's decided to please himself instead of everyone else. It's a decision that involves sacrifices he wasn't willing to make as a younger man.
"It dawned on me when I started making a living playing music that if I wrote and sang country music, that I wouldn't be able to get as many topless dancers as I was playing that other horseshit," he says. "The Strand was just kind of a compromise. I was really into country, and if I had any integrity at the time, I would have gone out and done a country deal.
"If it's the kind of music that doesn't get you a lot of topless dancers and free drugs, then that's the way it goes," he adds with a laugh. "That's life. I mean, if you wanna make good music, you gotta let some things go by the wayside."
As for Artists and Whores, it meets his own highly stringent standards. "I'm really happy with this record," he says. "If I got hit by a car tomorrow, I'd feel like I left something. Finally. Right in time to get my first social-security check."
Joined at the Hip: Fans of dance music will want to attend the latest incarnation of The Hip Joint, a weekly DJ night debuting Thursday, February 5, at Voodoo Bar and Grill in Scottsdale (4428 North Scottsdale Road). The Hip Joint features DJ Essential and weekly guests, spinning a mix of rare groove, Latin, dope jazz, house, and bass 'n' drum.
Due Props: A good time is guaranteed for all at the "Night of 1,000 Props" Friday, February 6, at Hollywood Alley in Mesa, an event sure to be loaded with astounding theatrics and heart-tugging sing-alongs. Headlining the show will be Les Payne Product, with support acts Vic Masters, Balls, and that band of stubbornly retro, glam-metal crusaders, Psycho Gypsy. Spandex and makeup are optional.
--Gilbert Garcia
Contact Gilbert Garcia at his online address: [email protected]
