BR549 – Back to Broadway
“When I Come Home” and “Honky Tonk Lifestyle” are as country as anything they’ve done. While rockabilly energy has always been a part of the band’s sound, Scruggs’ “I Ain’t Got Time” and Mead’s “Way Too Late (To Go Home Early Now)” have an edge that’s as hard-hitting as anything BR549 has previously offered. And they’ve never had the fierce twin-guitar attack that tears through “Movin’ The Country” and “No Friend Of Mine”.
Mostly, though, there’s a fresh confidence and sense of purpose. There’s as much variety and as many styles and contributors as ever, but overall the collection clicks in a way the band hasn’t since its early Arista releases in 1996-97.
“I really feel like it’s our best record,” Mead says. “That has nothing to do with Gary and Jay not being in the band. It has everything to do with the fact that we were left to our own devices, and we know more about making records now. This is the first time we made an album without anyone else looking over our shoulder — no producer, no record companies, no one but us.
“We’re not trying to slight anybody,” he continues; “we’ve worked with great people and we’ve learned a lot. But this was just us in a basement studio left on our own. We did only our own songs. We weren’t ready to make this album before, because we didn’t know what we know now. But it was time, and it worked great.”
Mead cites his experience with a couple of tribute albums as giving him more know-how and confidence in the studio. The timing of those albums — Dressed In Black: A Tribute To Johnny Cash (issued on Dualtone in September 2002) and Lonesome, On’ry And Mean: A Tribute To Waylon Jennings (an April 2003 Dualtone release) — also gave Mead a healthy diversion while his primary band suffered through a difficult period.
The idea for the Cash tribute came out of a show Mead and Cash bassist Dave Roe organized in Nashville as a toast to drummer W.S. “Fluke” Holland and pianist Earl Poole Ball, two longtime Cash band members. They pulled together a host of roots musicians to play songs by Cash and Carl Perkins, and to recognize what Holland and Ball brought to these famous songs.
Afterward, Roe suggested to Mead that they should consider trying to sell a record company on the idea of a Cash tribute album. Mead knew the principal executives at Dualtone because both had been on staff at Arista during BR549’s tenure there. Dualtone signed on for the Cash tribute, which was enough of a success that the label re-enlisted Roe and Mead to co-produce the subsequent Jennings tribute.
“That kept me occupied for a while,” Mead says. “But it also taught me a lot about the studio. I’d already learned some things, but that really pushed it into me. After those experiences, I felt like I knew how to make a record. I think it really helped when it came to making the next BR record.”
Meanwhile, Mead basically took over management of BR549. He coordinated everything behind-the-scenes for the band. “He just took on all the duties,” says Wilson, who has known Mead since they played in bands together in Lawrence, Kansas, in the late 1980s and early ’90s. “We all owe a lot to Chuck because he devoted all his time to keeping the band alive and making things happen. He was the one doing the work.”
Mead felt driven because he liked the energy the new lineup created. Besides, he’d worked for a living before — his last jobs were as a canvasser for Greenpeace in 1993 and a waiter at a Nashville chain restaurant in 1994 — and he preferred his current occupation. “We’ve worked long and hard to never have to work long and hard — that’s our motto,” he says.
The band members paid for the album themselves, recording it in short spurts over several months in an East Nashville basement. They wanted Ray Kennedy to mix it, and they sat on the recordings for a while until Kennedy’s schedule allowed him time. “Ray’s a bona fide genius, he really is,” Mead says. “It was worth it to us to get him to do it. We’re glad we did, because I think it shows.”
Given the established relationship, the band took it to Dualtone first. But they didn’t hear anything for a while. Then, after a couple of months had passed, the band got an excited call from label execs who had heard the album and loved it. Mead recalls that they asked, “Where have you been hiding this?” He responded, “You’ve had it in your in-box for months.”
Mead had thought that if they’d listen, they’d bite. He felt that confident. “We feel like these guys have been through it all with us before, and they know us, and that means a lot,” he says. “I just felt that if they heard what we were doing, they’d get excited for us. And that’s what happened.”
Quite likely, they’ll get the same response elsewhere, too, from old fans and perhaps from new listeners as well. BR549 realize they have something to prove. They also believe that Tangled In The Pines, and the live shows they’ve been putting on in recent months, provide the evidence as to why they’ve kept going.
“I’m just real happy that we’ve got another opportunity to do something,” Mead says. “I mean, shit, we’re still making records, still getting paid to go out and play shows. That’s a wonderful thing. It was amazing to me the first time I got to do it, and it’s amazing to me now.”
Wilson, who’s been offering cynical and hilariously caustic quips through most of the conversation, agrees. “It’s a new year for us, for sure,” he says, and he and his old friend trade glances packed with the baggage of shared persistence.
“You know, we’re more on top of things now,” Mead says, his thick reddish auburn hair pointing every which direction from the top of his head. “We’re not just walking blind through it all. We know what the fuck we’re doing, which, believe me, is an amazing thing for a couple of old screw-ups. But we do, and it makes a difference. You appreciate things differently. But you also know how to make it work.”
Michael McCall, a veteran Nashville journalist, had his car stolen from a free downtown parking lot one night in 1995 as he danced to BR549 and bar-hopped on Lower Broadway. It now costs $10 to park in the same lot.