Vandoliers Find Liberation
in Life Behind Bars

Vandoliers are doing their part to keep the spirit of alt-country alive with their raucous blend of punk, country, and mariachi. In other words, they’re the quintessential Texas dive bar band.

They’ve long been outspoken supporters of the queer community, going viral for protesting the Tennessee Drag Band by performing in dresses as a protest; that was when lead singer Jenni Rose realized that she may be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community herself. And so, the band’s fifth and newest album, Life Behind Bars (released June 27), finds the Vandoliers exploring the wild desert landscape of the heart: sobriety, grief, gender dysphoria — and joy in liberation.

Good Country spoke with group members Rose and multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves in early June about collaborating as a six-piece band, working with producer Ted Hutt to push the band to ever-more lyrical honesty and musical proficiency, and the profound impact Jenni’s sobriety and coming out has had on the band.

The album’s title track, “Life Behind Bars,” deals in part with frustrations of life on the road – but Vandoliers are known for bringing the party. How do you balance these two realities?

Jenni Rose: I couldn’t be a lead singer of this band unless I got sober. I tried really hard to be the party person and be the lead singer and be able to do this hundreds of times a year. I just couldn’t do everything. Put the party down for a little bit, and that brought up so much in my life. It made the shows exponentially better. It made me a better singer. On this record, you’re really hearing me processing this new identity, this new life unfolding. It starts with the question, “Why can’t I get sober?” and then it’s like – “Oh my God, I’m in the wrong body.”

I was dealing with a lot. Cory was dealing with a lot, the whole band was dealing with a lot. We have made four records of us asking, “Where am I at in my life? What am I going through?” We’ve been able to conquer the humorous and the serious, so we weren’t really out of our comfort zone by talking about big feelings, but they’re in this album for sure.

The song has four co-writers: you two, Joshua Ray Walker, and John Pedigo – Texas royalty for sure. While it’s common for pop country songs to have many writers, it’s a bit unusual in the Americana world. How did you all even find yourselves in one place together?

JR: Josh Walker and I are really close. I was with him a lot during his cancer diagnosis. We were catching up and we were about to go to Sonic Ranch to record. I suggested we just go write a song and call up John, who used to produce our records. He pretty much has a co-write on every Vandoliers record except for the last one. We love writing together.

Josh Walker brought up the frustrations with touring and we were talking about how we can keep doing it. Then we thought, “Let’s say we didn’t do it. What else are we gonna do? What kind of jobs are hiring 40-year-olds for entry-level positions?” Cory and Josh had been talking about this line “life behind bars” as a double entendre for years. We all related to it and everybody just started throwing out lines. And then by the end of it, we were all screaming the hook and we had a song.

When you began working with producer, Ted Hutt, he said your songs were “superficial” and pushed you to go deeper. How was it to hear that feedback?

JR: It was wonderful. That conversation was like a year before we got to the studio. So I came in with like 40 tunes. Cory came in with like six or seven. Ted really took the time to listen to our writing and pick the songs that were right for the record. He pushed me so hard with my lyric writing and my vocal performance.

I was writing and rewriting things, clarifying, digging deeper into what I was trying to say and that opened me up to a lot of emotions. I knew I was gonna hit gender dysphoria, but I didn’t know I was gonna hit it there. Then [the] Pandora’s Box was completely opened.

Cory Graves: We’ve always craved a producer that would come in and be like a seventh voice in the room, like a tiebreaker voice or someone who could come in with other ideas. We’ve gotten that a little bit here and there in the past, but never as much as I think some of us wanted. He was heavy-handed, like suggesting we change a song from a punk song to a country song or changing the key.

We all knew that we wanted that. Going in, we all agreed that if Ted wanted to try something, everyone would just be happy about it and try it. That’s exactly what happened. It always worked out for the better.

What lessons do you think you’ll bring with you from this process?

JR: I’m already better at being fully vulnerable when I write. Life Behind Bars is me opening up, whereas some of my writing right now is pretty brutal. I’m excited about moving forward being fully aware and shameless in my writing now.

The band itself is so collaborative, by nature of the kinds of sounds you make. How does the band work together?

CG: We all have so many different influences. None of the songs ended up sounding like the demos. They ended up sounding like a piece of everyone. My song, “Thoughts and Prayers,” was more of a punk song, but ended up as a rockabilly song. “Life Behind Bars” started as an emo song while “Bible Belt” was kind of like a Green Day song. Now it’s like The Cars meets, like – I don’t know. So many different things. There’s a twang to it, but also ’80s rock, because Dustin [Fleming], our guitar player, was in a Cars cover band. So he’s got that in his blood.

There are different things that we each bring out from our past into the tunes.

Jenni, it sounds like for a while you isolated yourself socially from the band a bit. How do you both feel things have changed since you’ve come out?

JR: When I was trying to quit drinking, I changed all of my habits just to make sure that I could. It would have jeopardized my career if I kept going the way that I was going. I didn’t wanna do that, ’cause it’s not just my career, it’s everybody’s career. So I started going to the gym after the shows and then journaling during the day, having a ten-minute free write, word-vomit of poetry that I would send to Ted. I would do this every day and that would take me three hours – most of the van ride. So I’d be in my headphones, dead silent with everybody, and I was cocooning. I was going through a lot and I was trying to heal while in motion.

So everybody got to live with a hermit, essentially, for three years. I know it wasn’t cool, but I had to do it. I’m writing these songs. I’m reading every fucking self-help book I can possibly grab to figure out why I’m an addict. The dysphoria is starting to pick up and ramp up, because I’m starting to understand my emotions instead of dull them and ignore them. I am becoming more in tune with my body at the gym and noticing the dysphoria there and starting to understand myself better and better and better. While all of this is happening, I’m on fucking tour all over the world with six other people.

They’re watching somebody change the way that they eat. They’re watching somebody change what they do during the day. They’re watching my social life become pretty much non-existent. … Everybody becomes [at] arm’s-length on the road for a couple years. And then at a Taco Bell, I tell everybody I’m a trans girl and it’s like I’m right back to the party, I can like hang out again, I can go out after the show, or I can skip the gym. … I’m existing as my highest self after years of searching.

It sounds like your coming out has been a fairly positive experience so far.

JR: I saw immediately how quickly my relationships have been healing since coming out. Each person I told – before coming out publicly – it was great. Now I just get to be in a band with my friends again and they get to know me fully without me being scared of rejection.

I can’t manipulate anybody into accepting me. I can’t control how they feel about me. There’s nothing I can say that would make them either love me or not love me. You just kind of get to figure out who’s with you or not. I am so blessed that the people that are around me are at such a high quality. I think it’s a testament to just my exquisite taste in humans. I’ve been so blessed.

Everybody around me loves me and wants me to keep going and wants to keep being in my life, which is not what I thought that they would do. I assumed that I would be abandoned by everybody, because that’s the narrative that we’re all used to, but it’s been really beautiful. I’m really glad I did it.

Your coming out process has been very public. Your band went viral for protesting the Tennessee drag ban the day it was passed by wearing dresses on stage. And now, you’ve come out in Rolling Stone. So, how are you doing?

JR: Wearing the dresses was Cory’s idea. I have worn so many dresses behind closed doors. No one knew this side of me. When we went shopping for dresses, we all were having fun. When I put it on I was so nervous, but I was also really comfortable. And then we went out and played and I twirled. I had a great time. I thought only like 80 people were gonna see this, that I’d wear a dress for this one show and that would be it. Then everybody saw it.

That was kind of when I realized I had this aspect of me. It was the first time anybody had seen it and everybody kind of saw it at once. It made me wanna drink again, ’cause I didn’t want this to keep multiplying because I was scared. It wasn’t the first time I’d worn a dress and I knew that that wasn’t the first time that I felt comfortable doing so. I didn’t know if I wanted to accept that, or think that it was anything more than a kink or whatever. But I was sober and I did have to deal with it, and I did have to talk about it with my family and my wife.

If anybody’s reading this and they’re questioning if they should come out, you should. It’s good for you.

What are you each most excited about getting the album out in the world and touring it?

CG: I’m excited that people are gonna hear a little bit of a different side of us and to see what they think of it. I think more people are gonna be aware of us than ever, and I’m excited to see how people react to that.

Also, I’ve been doing music for, I don’t know, 20-something years. I’m 41 years old. I’ve never sung a lead vocal on any record in my entire life. I’m just excited for that [“Thoughts and Prayers”] to be in the world. That’s a big accomplishment for me, personally.

JR: I’m glad you sang it. You sang it much better than I was singing it!

I am most excited to be seen as 100% me on the road and to see what that does. So far, it’s been really magical. I think it’s been really positive. As I’m out and I’m playing, these bars or venues or theaters or little music series or festivals, they’re gonna see a trans person in a band, maybe at a country festival, maybe in a small town, maybe at a place that they wouldn’t usually see a queer person, and they’re gonna have to figure out how they feel about that.

I think the thing that I’m most excited about is posing that question to people and giving them a chance to react. I have faith in our fans, but I also have faith in our country, too. I don’t think hate has as much of a stronghold as we might think. It’s there for sure, but I think there’s a lot of love too.


Photo Credit: Vincent Monsaint

The Show On The Road – Chicano Batman

This week, The Show On The Road features a conversation with members of LA’s Latin roots-rock heroes Chicano BatmanThe band came together in 2008 and is comprised of Eduardo Arenas (bass, guitar, vocals), Carlos Arévalo (guitars), Bardo Martinez (lead vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Gabriel Villa (drums).

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTSSTITCHERSPOTIFYMP3

Host Z. Lupetin was able to catch up with Bardo Martinez and Eduardo Arenas while they sheltered in place at home in LA. In the past you may have seen Chicano Batman at music festivals like Coachella dressing up in matching Mariachi outfits or crooning in a colorful mashup of Spanish and English on previous standout records like the dreamy Cycles of Existential Rhyme and the rebellious Freedom Is Free.  

Their newest work, Invisible People, is their most personal, political, and downright danceable release to date. The traditional Mariachi outfits may be tucked away in storage, but their playful vibe remains, even as the musicianship and pop-tightness took a big jump forward.

After twelve years of expanding and fine-tuning their sound and finding a devoted national audience, Chicano Batman is no longer the oddball, upstart band. While they now focus mainly on English lyrics, they know as songwriters and performers that they’ve become role models for Los Angeles’s vibrant Latin-roots rock renaissance, acting as springboards to a whole new scene that may not have a genre or name yet.


 

LISTEN: Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few, “Martini”

Artist name: Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Martini”
Album: Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few
Release Date: June 19, 2020
Label: Break A Leg Records

In Their Words: “As we first started playing shows, new fans would come up and enthusiastically ask, ‘What do you call this music?!’ We described is as ‘martini music.’ My wife Brandi suggested we write a big, fun up-tempo ode to the martini, so we rode over to Floyd Domino’s house and all did our best to just get the hell outta this song’s way. It’s one of those rare little gems that seemed to write itself. That line ‘country club mosquitoes’ had us all goin’ nuts. I can count on this song to always deliver a musical shovel-to-the-face at any gig.” — Monte Warden


Photo credit: Sean Mathis

Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass (Part 2 of 2)

In honor of the new documentary film, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, and in appreciation of her connection to bluegrass — and in an attempt to shout it from the proverbial rooftops! — we’re reprinting Dan Mazer’s 1996 Bluegrass Unlimited interview with Ronstadt split into two parts, but in its entirety on BGS. Special thanks to the team at Bluegrass Unlimited for partnering with BGS to spotlight how bluegrass has touched one of the most important and truly iconic voices to ever grace this planet.

(Read part one of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)

“Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass”
By Dan Mazer. Bluegrass Unlimited, June 1996

…Our conversation moved to a discussion of Alison Krauss’ musicianship. Krauss seems to have an incredible variety of influences, which come out when she wants them to. “And in an appropriate manner,” Ronstadt continued. “There seems to be a general agreement among all the people that I know – whose various subjectivities are very strict and very demanding – that Alison has the best taste of any of those people.

“Every fiddle player that I’ve ever worked with will be tempted to play sound(s) like donkeys braying; or just play too much – play ‘flash’ licks in an inappropriate manner. (I call it) ‘The Paganini Syndrome.’ And Alison never is.

“Her pitch is completely stunning! I’m a pitch nazi, and she’s even a little more strict than I am, in terms of pitch. And the thing that I like the very best about her playing is her rhythm. She’s got that great, easy, loping sense of the groove that bluegrass players generally don’t have. When it’s right, of course, it’s got a great swing to it. But bluegrass players have a tendency to get a little stiff and a little on top of the groove. And she never does! I don’t think she’s played with drummers that much, but we put her together with Jim Keltner, and it was just an amazing thing. She’s got the same sense of the groove that he does, and he has the effortless pocket. I consider her as good as any musician I’ve ever worked with. My cousin (David Lindley) said she was his favorite fiddle player ever. And I love her. And also, she owns Maria Callas’ bed! (Laughter) I don’t know why, or how she managed to get her hands on it, but she did. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one to get it. Emmylou Harris and I are both Maria Callas fans. Slobbering, drooling Maria Callas fans!” 

When asked to comment on other bluegrass acts, Ronstadt confessed that she doesn’t listen to any modern music of any style. In fact, she was unfamiliar with many of the major country acts. Nor had she ever heard of the IBMA. “Honestly, the only ones I know (are) Ricky Skaggs, Alison, and (the) Seldom Scene,” she said. “But before that, it really was those original guys (Flatt and Scruggs and Monroe). I mean, it was such a short-lived era. And before that, the Blue Sky Boys, which wasn’t really bluegrass, but which really sorta fed right into it. I love those guys, and I listen to the Louvin Brothers a lot. So I listen to all the stuff that led right up to it. 

“I know very little of any kind of contemporary music. I just don’t. I listen to NPR, and I listen to Maria Callas and them, and I listen to a lot of Mexican music, and that’s about it. And if it penetrates through that it’s usually because Emmy calls me up, or John Starling calls me up, or Quint Davis. Quint Davis is the guy that runs the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and he put on that thing on the Mall for the inauguration. That’s where I saw Alison. I was just blown away by her!

“I don’t know modern stuff. I haven’t a clue. It seems like when we did the ‘Trio’ record, nobody was interested in traditional music. And then that record was pretty successful, and at that point, Ricky Skaggs was extremely successful, but all of a sudden, I don’t know. I don’t watch this type of stuff on television. I haven’t got the vaguest idea, and I don’t listen to the radio. I have a great respect for anything that anybody does. I mean, I think it’s just so hard to make a record – any record – that I don’t like to put myself in the position of, ‘This is good, and that’s not good,’ like a bean-counter. But I have to say that (modern country fails) to capture my interest.

“There’s always music in front of my face. If I was gonna sit and listen to Mozart, (and) someone said, ‘OK, this is gonna be it (you can only listen to Mozart) forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ And if someone was playing me some Mexican traditional music, and they said, ‘This is gonna be it forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ Because there’s enough in any of those things, to (keep me interested). 

“Somebody came over to my house the other day with some musicians from Madagascar. They sit down in my kitchen and played this Malagassi music, and it just blew me through the wall! So, if they had said at that point, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to sing a little Malagassi now,’ I would’ve said, ‘Well, OK. Fine!’ I could’ve got right down and sung with them, and had no problem at all. But I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and if that thin is interesting, I just don’t have any particular need to shift my attention. 

“When John Starling comes out to visit me, he sits down at my kitchen table with his guitar, and we start singing. I get pried back to English. But I’d really rather sing in Spanish or Italian. Because all that stuff (bluegrass and country) is based on rural southern pronunciation. And in Spanish – if I’m singing a Latin jazz thing that’s a Caribbean base, I have to push myself from my northern Mexican rural accent into a Caribbean accent, which is painful for me. I find it an unpleasant way to pronounce the language, but I have to do it in order to get the rhythms right. So I do it. I really push myself into that other accent. But I prefer singing in my own accent – the accent of my family’s region. I can just get so much more sound out of my voice in that language.” 

Over the course of a career, an artist makes many decisions based upon the age-old dilemma of commercialism versus artistic merit. What the public wants to buy is not always what the artists likes [sic] to paint, play, or sing. Ms. Ronstadt has lately recorded opera, Big Band and Mexican music, none of which usually sells platinum in today’s market. It seems that she has reached a point in which she doesn’t have to worry about selling a certain number of records; her musical decisions are now totally artistic. “Well, they were to start with, too. It’s just that I wasn’t as good at executing them!” She protested with a laugh. “And I find that now. I’m making my choices based on an artistic thing, but I am also finding that my choices were made for me when I was a baby. It’s getting harder, though. I do find that the record companies have a tendency to stick their oar in a lot more now. It’s very nervous-making. Although, the one person that I’ve allowed to submit material and give advice – I don’t always take it, but I always consider it – is (Asylum Records President) Kyle Lehning. He’s an amazing guy! He really, genuinely likes music, first of all, which is rare for a record person. Second of all, he’s extremely knowledgeable, and he has great taste in songs. And he seems dedicated to the idea of trying to save what he can that’s quality, and nurture it.

“(The latest project) started with several nagging phone calls from John Starling!” She laughed. “John Starling doesn’t get down behind traditional Mexican music! And then Emmy calling me, because Emmy and I are such fans of the McGarrigle Sisters. We were talking about doing some television stuff. We were just trying to think of how we could get in the living room together again with John Starling. So we started working on tunes, like the Carter Family songs that only Emmy and I would be interested in. And maybe John Starling or Claire Lynch, or somebody. John had, a long time ago, sent us Claire Lynch records, saying, ‘You really gotta sing with this girl. She’s real wonderful.’ So claire and Emmy and I have done some stuff together. 

“And then, I’ve been working with Valerie Carter. She put a record out in the ‘70s. Everybody in Hollywood was after her. She’s an extraordinary singer, and she was exceptionally beautiful. She was about 19, I think, then. Lowell George and Mick Jagger and Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther and Danny Kortchmar – everybody wanted to work with her. Everybody tried to, and then George Massenberg, who is my production partner – who I met through John Starling – did produce a record from her, and so did Lowell George. I sang on it. Then she just had some problems, and she dropped out of sight for about 15 years, which was really a tragedy for us. ‘Cause she’s one of those girls that can sing as well as Whitney Houston. She’s got that kind of chops. But it doesn’t sound like her. It’s a very distinctive voice. But that kind of ability. It was too bad, ‘cause she was (a) really interesting singer. So she’s now been singing on the road with James Taylor a lot. I used her to sing a lot on my last record, that I put out. The blend between her and me and Emmy was just really magical! So we’ve done some stuff together, the three of us. 

“But what Emmy and I wanted to do was just explore. See what we could go find out there. We wanted to push the limits a little bit, and see what we could find in terms of texture, combining styles, of things that we liked that don’t always fit in one little (category). Like the McGarrigle Sisters. Where do you put that? It’s not really traditional folk music, and it’s got traditional roots. It certainly isn’t bluegrass. And the sentiment is too unbridled for current pop, ‘cool’ standards. But it’s very intelligent music. 

“There’s other stuff that is kind of like that; that’s kind of ‘out there.’ And there’s some stuff that’s just real, real traditional. So we’ve just been fooling around with various singers. And then I sang with Claire Lynch and my cousin John, who’s got a wonderful voice – on two songs.” 

Although she maintains that after a project is finished she doesn’t care what happens, Ronstadt is intensely involved in its creation. “Oh, I mix everything! I do every single thing,” she declared. “I make the record, I do the arrangements, I do the harmony arrangements, I do a lot of the instrumental arrangements. Nothing is done on the record without me being there. But when it’s finished, I never listen to it again. You can take it and throw it off a cliff, for all I care. I’ve heard it and I’ve done it, and that’s the experience; and now I go on to something else. So at that point, I surrender it to the record company, and they do whatever. They can shoot it with a gun if they want to. I don’t care what they do. Long as they don’t shoot me.” 

Returning to the topic of bluegrass, Ronstadt commented, “I understand what [the banjo] does, rhythmically. And I appreciate what it does – that syncopated thing; the difference in all those accents. 

“I think of the banjo kinda like I think of the trumpet in mariachi, which is: trumpet was brought in about the same time that the resonator was added onto the back of the banjo. It was a ‘radio’ event, and a good one. It was a really good thing; it needed that high end to cut through. But if somebody came to bed and blew a trumpet in my ear, I’d get annoyed! If somebody came to bed with me and started plucking a banjo, I would probably jump right up to the ceiling! But it’s a great instrument in the orchestral blend. It’s really got a great place. And I don’t think the banjo will ever go out of style. 

“Those other instruments are a lot more flexible. They can bear a lot more. I’ve really become a complete mandolin fan, ‘cause I’ve been working with David Grisman. I just think he’s a genius. I knew his playing. I knew he was considered a ‘hot chops’ player. I think he plays bluegrass sometimes, but he really predates and transcends all of that stuff completely. I mean, he can play like a classical player. I’ve never heard anybody with dynamics like that, and I’ve never played with anybody that could play with a vocalist; and play little internal harmonies. He just flits around like a little hummingbird – all around the vocal line – and plays a beautiful little harmony for a while, and then he goes off to a rhythm pattern, then he comes back. He has great ideas for voicings, and he has very, very good rhythm ideas. I just love to work with him. I think he’s brilliant.

“You know what I think is missing from bluegrass at this point? And from all that kind of traditional music? Dancing. That’s what I discovered with Mexican music, was that it is dance music. Period. I think, as is fiddle (music). As soon as you uncouple it from (dancing), the music changes. It’s the same way with pop music. As soon as it became recorded music – people started dancing in discos to recorded music – the music stopped being alive, and it stopped changing in a real vital way. Started changing in a more static, strange, mechanized way. 

“So my suggestion, to the bluegrass world would be, one should never uncouple that music from dancing. There should always be dancers involved with bluegrass music.” 

The author commented that singing is also something that’s been taken away from most people and given only to professionals. “Yeah, it’s an outrage! In Mexican culture, everyone sings,” she responded. “Everyone knows all the words, and they all sing. We sing at the dinner table. Whatever you’re doing, you sing. You sing in a funeral, you sing at a birthday, you sing at a wedding. You sing if you’re happy, you sing if you’re sad. It’s a thing you get to do to help you along with your life. Everyone should sing. It’s a biological necessity. Even little babies sing. I mean, even when they’re pre-verbal, you hear them kind of leaning into a sound.”

(Read part one of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)


Photos and artwork courtesy of Shore Fire Media
Article appears courtesy of Bluegrass Unlimited