Combine songs about food (“Who Ate My Haggis?”), religion (“Up on High”) and drinking (“I Like to Drink”), add a peculiar dose of punk attitude, front porch jam and hillbilly stomp, and you’ll have a feel for the Gourds. Adding a few more descriptions like loud acoustic, swamp rock, outlaw country and booze-addled jug band might leave you as dazed and confused as this Austin, Texas, band that enjoys playing with your head.
What’s made them inadvertent anti-heroes is their bizarre moonshine-laced cover of “Gin and Juice,” Snoop Dogg’s ode to the joys of sex, drugs and drink, the world’s first and only country cover of Dogg Pound material. Made famous through word of mouth and the rise of Napster, the Gourds are enjoying their new level of notoriety and concomitant popularity. Neither one-shot wonders nor one-hit novelty act, these goofy guys are honky-tonk virtuosos bringing a sense of musical wonder in their own ragged but right, down-home way.
Speaking with co-instigator Kevin Russell in Austin was like being caught up in the stream-of-consciousness, absurdist lyrics that populate the six Gourds full-length discs. Being in Texas, Russell was at his son’s football practice, watching his six-year-old’s flag football team.
Despite their Texas train wreck image, talking with Russell reveals that the Gourds are no slouches when it comes to generating music. Russell discussed the group’s beginnings going back to the early 90s, when he was finishing up his tenure with the Picket Line Coyotes. There were a number of Texas bands kicking around that were exploring new combinations of music in a country, rootsy sort of way. “The Bad Livers were a big influence. I know Danny (Barnes) and Mark (Rubin). Always friends of theirs. They were in Killbilly, which they left to become the Bad Livers. The Blood Oranges appeared then. Didn’t know them as well. Good stuff but it didn’t resonate like the Bad Livers, who were doing a synthesis of 80s-90s roots styles, (that were) then falling out of fashion.”
“I always liked roots/country music,” he added. “I don’t see any difference between Merle Haggard and Steve Earle. It’s all the same — country, Americana, roots — just with different labels or different marketing, like for example No Depression. The lines are blurry.”
Though the Gourds may appear loosey-goosey, musically they’re not. They just happen to be good at what they’re doing and make it look easy, the mark of an excellent band. Russell is one of several co-founders, co-singer/songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, contributing vocals, as well as acoustic and electric guitars and mandolin. Bassist and singer/songwriter Jimmy Smith contributes many tunes to their arsenal, including the catchy silliness of “My Name is Jorge,” about a fruit vendor named Jorge selling an apple to famous beat William S. Burroughs: “I sold me an apple to William S. Burroughs/He shot up his dope, his wine sap, his girl.” Or selling a lemon to hateful Henry Ford: “But he brought it back, I said, all sales are final.”
The third multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter is Max Johnston, who has played fiddle with Uncle Tupelo, Wilco and Freakwater, and who brings a sense of normalcy and sobriety to the wacko mixture, playing fiddle, mandolin, slide guitar and banjo. His father “Dollar” Bill Johnston actually closes their most recent CD, Cow Fish Fowl or Pig, with a moody elegy to the Texas-Louisiana backlands. The other two band members are equally significant. For example, without Claude Bernard you’d be missing his atmospheric accordion playing, while Keith Langford provides passionate drums, harmonica, percussion, rub board and whatever else he brings to the party.
And it is party time when the Gourds play. Perhaps one of the best bar bands ever, the group connects with audiences through its savvy word play, combustible stage show and musical virtuosity. It’s not unlike ZZ Top meets the Carter Family while covering the Pogues, though it’s more like The Band meets the Louisiana Aces or old time Arkansas bluegrass meets Los Lobos in an East LA barrio. Confused? Wait until you see how they transform the laid-back “Gin and Juice” into a hillbilly stomp. As Russell explains, “I’ve always done weird covers. My sister was crazy about Snoop and she played it for me. I knew I’d want to do a version in some way. After months, one day the melody just popped into my head. I played it for friends and everyone thought it was hilarious. One day, we (the Gourds) finally played it at a club and it brought the house down. “Oh shit’, I thought, “What have we done?'”
Russell says, it’s still “fun to do with a good crowd. When the crowd kicks in, it can be really uplifting, in a human animal sort of way. Sometimes, though, it’s just not worth it.” It has to be the right crowd at the right time, he added.
He still marvels at the mistaken identity the band endured as Napster downloaders repeatedly misidentified the band’s version as done by Phish, Ween or even Garth Brooks.
But these mistaken identities are key to the band’s spirit. When asked about who inspired the Gourds, Russell rushes out a wild list of names, “Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Velvet Underground, the Clash, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Leadbelly, American rock & roll, the British Invasion, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra…We once had a jam session in a pub in London. We felt like hicks, which we are, so we played a Carter Family song. The other musicians played an Irish, British or Scottish version of whatever we were playing. We did it all night. Got drunk as skunks. We loved it and those musical connections were great — folk, traditional, rock, R&B…it’s all good.”
Russell concludes, “If it’s not a formula, we like it. Aw, shit, we love it all!” So say goodbye to corporate, manufactured music and welcome the return of spontaneous, good-time, off-kilter, infectious, roadhouse music as exemplified by the Gourds. Or as they would put it, “music for the un-washed and well-read.”
The Gourds play the Visulite Theatre Thursday with Papa Mali; tickets are $13. The doors open at 8pm.
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2004.
