Jimmy Lumpkin lives in a cabin on the edge of a swamp in Summerdale, Alabama where trees grow tall in the murky water of the Fish River and leaves break sunlight into shade. It is also where Lumpkin and his southern blues jam band Trigger Root pick out new guitar licks, write songs, or drink a beer. Inside, Dave Howell’s drums are tucked under the loft stairs between the kitchen and den. Mics hang down from the rafters, and Lumpkin’s harmonica, tambourine and handwritten lyrics wait on a black music stand in the corner.
In a burly beard and an Overlander hat that his wife bought for $3 at a yard sale, Lumpkin is the lead singer of a band that shares his need to start with something old to create something new. The band’s gritty romps are driven by Dave Howell’s drums, Eric Jones’ bass, Tom Haase’s electric guitar, and Lumpkin’s soulful, haunting, country voice. “The core of Trigger Root is we want everything to be real and true to who we are,” says Lumpkin. “Our songs come from the life we live and we blend old styles together into the music we want to play. We use vintage amps for natural tone and distortion.”
The name Trigger Root is to inspire the band to listen to older music like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. “The name was also subconscious for me,” says Lumpkin. “I had been living in Colorado and playing in and out of bands. It was time to stay in one place and grow roots. I want to make music with these guys for a long time.”
The stomping, driving music is based on real people and places and connects with audiences. “Trigger Root sings about places you know and places you have been and that is why people love them here,” says Bobby Kirkpatrick, owner of My Place Downtown in Fairhope where Trigger Root often plays. “They are an acoustic band, but rub in a bit of dirt, a dash of cusswords, a shot of whiskey, and that is Trigger Root. Jimmy looks like a hippie, but he sings with a southern drawl. After you hear him sing, you know him.”
To hear their music is to know all of them. It is what they love and all that they want to do. “Music is inside me and has to come out,” says Haase. “There is no way I can go through the day and not play music.”
“I gave up music for a marriage a few years ago,” says Howell. “I sold my drum set and quit. It ended up ruining my marriage because I went crazy without music. Playing music is a release and I have to get it out. Even if it is just jamming with the guys in a room.”
Lumpkin, Haase and Howell are three of the four original members of Trigger Root. They came together in 2009, and practiced for a year before they played in public. “In the beginning we were more jamming and bluesy and we figured out which of our songs meshed together,” says Lumpkin. “Our music has become more natural since with folksy, bluegrass, swamp country, but that will continue to change. Dave was a hard rock drummer, but he has scaled back to one foot in blues and one foot in rock. Tom’s influences are Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Robert Johnson. His lead guitar paints a color and sound that bleeds into everything else.”
The band recorded its first album, “Sun of a Gun,” in 2011, but the bass player left soon after the album was released, and the band lost its way. “That was a fragile time for us,” says Howell. “We had a hard time finding the right bass player and we didn’t know if Trigger Root was going to survive.”
The band found it’s missing piece in a songwriting guitar player when Lumpkin met Jones in a songwriting contest sponsored by the Alabama Department of Tourism. “Eric beat me because he kept looking at the judges,” laughs Lumpkin. “I met him again at the LA Songwriter’s Festival in Fairhope and we became friends. Eric is a guitar player, but he learned how to play bass so he could be in the band.”
It took time for Jones to catch up with the band and feel comfortable playing solos on the bass. “It has gone from being simplistic and just trying not to make a mistake, to playing myself out on a limb and finding my way back,” says Jones. “We play a few Led Zeppelin songs and we used to play them at the beginning of the show before I had a few beers because those songs scared me. Now those songs are nothing to play.”
The rejuvenated band built a foundation in its mix of wood, steel, voices, harmonica, and drums to create songs that are hard, strong, and soaring. Each member has the freedom to explore the music they are feeling and songs like “Funky Feeling” and “Back Seat Driver” are stretched with improvisation. “There are times when someone goes off on a tangent with hotshot licks and we step back and let him go,” says Lumpkin. “I like to push them and see where they will take us. The more we play together, the tighter it gets. When I take a song it becomes a part of me. The other guys do it with their instruments. What brings us together is an understanding and appreciation of each other.”
The band’s second album, “Trigger Root,” was released in August, but they have written enough songs to fill at least two more albums. Songs often unfold during jam sessions where Haase or Jones plays a riff and Lumpkin makes up the words as they go. Ideas and chords are saved to an iPhone for rewinds and rewrites. Guitars and drums work through bridges and stops as Lumpkin adds more lines. “It is kind of like building a road,” says Howell. “We build it in pieces. We get so far, stop, and go back to the beginning.”
Haase and Jones also write songs for the band. “Having multiple songwriters gives variety to our music so we aren’t limited to one voice,” says Haase. “Every song sounds different and it feels good to write and explore the music with them.”
“I go into veins and streams of songwriting,” says Lumpkin. “Sometimes it is my love for my wife or a ‘good time Charlie’ song. Right now I am in a dark writing vein that is bridging the good times with accepting things aren’t the way I used to think they are. Sometimes the reality of that takes me into a dark place and songwriting is the way I come out. It is why I write songs.”
Memories and places grow into songs such as “River Song” and “Shady Grady.”
Way down in the hollow where life is simple and sweet. It’s the perfect place to ease your mind and set your spirit free. Go down to the river and watch your worries slowly drift away. Funny how that river seems to brighten up your darkest day. We’ll be sipping whiskey, smiling, laughing, music playing, hands are clapping. It’s all right. “River Song”
“Eric wrote ‘River Song,’ and when I hear a song like that it takes me away on a trip even though I stayed right here,” says Lumpkin. “It makes me satisfied with here even if I am not always satisfied with being here.”
“Shady Grady” is about a man who lived at the end of the dirt road where Lumpkin grew up. “Grady’s house looked haunted and I was afraid to go in the yard,” says Lumpkin. “I was skittish to him until I was about 17 and we became friends when he let me drink some of his beer. I wrote the song a year after that. It is a sad story about the tragedies he went through, but you have to listen to the words because I sing it happy.”
Sometimes their music comes back to them in unexpected places. “I was sitting in my kitchen and heard the bass from ‘Crank Up Your Truck’ cruising down the road and into my house,” says Jones. “My neighbor was listening to our CD as she was driving home and it sounded good. Music is about being able to create something and enjoy what you create.”
The band is ready to play their songs on bigger stages. “We are at the point where we have to be our best at every gig we play,” says Jones. “We are trying to get more of the right gigs for the band. There are places you can play for 50 or 100 people but only two are listening or the venue isn’t set up for bands. We are excited to play at BayFest in Mobile again this year. It feels so good to be on the big stage with a soundman who makes us sound good and the music reverberates off all the buildings. We want to play more festivals like that.”
Several times the band has felt the hopeful brush of bigger success. “There have been a couple of times when we felt like we were right there, ready to go to the next level, and the stars lined up but nothing happened,” says Haase. “You are almost there and then you aren’t. That keeps us pushing toward the goal. We want to play our music together but still be able to pay the rent and keep the lights on. Dave doesn’t ever want to eat macaroni and cheese again.”
Here is Trigger Root’s song “Jelly Roll.”
