Austinist Interviews King Straggler

You guys have a twangy, sort of country style to a lot of your music which is more familiar to people in Texas than to your HQ in Los Angeles. Do you find you get a more enthusiastic reception when coming through this part of the country?

Rodney: We've never been to Texas. We've never been to that part of the Country as a band. This is our first tour ever. And I think you'd be surprised at the reaction we get in a town like LA. It's interesting, in fact, we played one show at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles where a guy that none of us new...

John (interrupts): It was a woman actually, and she came up to me and asked where we were from, When I told her we were from LA she said, "Oh I wondered if you were from Austin. I'm from there and you guys sound like you could be from Austin." Turns out that I knew her sister, Dee Montgomery, who's since passed away, but um..Dee was quite famous in Austin she produced Slackers.

Rodney: Oh, okay...Anyway, I think people are looking for more authentic music lately and they're happy when they stumble onto something that's different from the same ol' same ol'. I just think, no matter what city you're in, you'll find people with tastes that match the music you're making. Whether it's really great or really bad.

A few of your band members are actors, including John who plays a big role on the Peabody Award winning show, Deadwood. Do you get people coming to the shows because of appearances in films and TV?

Rodney: I don't think people come to our shows particularly to see John Hawkes, actor or Rodney Eastman, actor or Brentley Gore, actor. I think we've made a reputation for ourselves as musicians.

John: Yeah we haven't pushed the Deadwood thing or the acting thing much. We're kinda doing that on the road just to get people in the door maybe a little bit. We do get quite a few people coming to see us that work on the show (Deadwood). That's kinda nice.

Do the acting schedules make being in a band difficult?

John: No, it's real easy...(the three explode with laughter). We can only play weekends for eight months of the year. Cause Deadwood is an unpredictable schedule, it's written last minute. So I'm like a doctor with an emergency room beeper eight months out of the year

On your new album, you worked with Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. How was that? Did working with him push the music in a different direction? It seems an odd choice, but interesting choice, based on the music you play.

Brentley: We didn't really work with Scott, we just worked in his studio, (Lavish). His partner in the studio, Doug Grean, who co-produced the record and became our bass player for our first six months of live shows (along with Blackie Onasis from Urge Overkill sitting in on drums for their first show with a rhythm section), was our connection to Scott. He (Scott) got most of what we were working on second hand. At the time, he was busy with the Velvet Revolver record. He supported us by basically giving us free reign at the studio. See, he was doing his VR vocals at Lavish, so he was being very selective who he let into the studio at that time. So we were very happy to be allowed to be there.

John: He liked us enough to steal our drummer for a gig, (on Carson Daly's Last Call)

(They all laugh)

In "Strangers Lament," John sings that nobody knows he's alive. People certainly know you're alive now -- do you think the success of Deadwood is going to change things for the band?

John: Again, if it gets people in the door, I think that's all any of us care about. Whatever success we have outside of the band, if we can parlay it into just getting people in, I think we can convert them.

Rodney: I agree with John. I think once we get people in the door, the music speaks for itself. I would say that the one way that being actors does factor into the band is, there's a definite element of theatricality in our shows. We're not big shoe-gazers. When we play, when we do a show, we come to entertain and give a show to the people.

John: We also hope that they leave with lots of merchandise.

Rodney: And the last thing I'll say about this is, I really believe that the first time people come to see King Straggler, they might come to see John Hawkes. But when they come back a second, third, fourth time, they're coming back for the music.

Brentley: I just want to say this...Los Angeles is, very much, not a town that would show up, especially in the coffee house where we started (Highland Grounds) to see actors. Because there's stars everywhere in this town. We live in Hollywood, California. You know, at one point another you see every famous person there is. So people in this town don't go to shows to see actors. And that made us really excited, that people were showing up for the music. And hopefully, when we play out of town, that's what people will be talking about when they leave the shows. the music, not the celebrity members of the band.

Rodney: Yeah, we've never pushed it here in LA cause of a certain stigma that's attached to being an actor band. And besides, when we started playing, Deadwood didn't even exist. So there was no celebrity to trade on. We were just a good band that people liked to come see on a Saturday night.

Your music is significantly different than most of the new new wave and art rock stuff coming out of New York and the UK right now. What bands do you guys play with?

John: We've shared the stage and played shows with pretty amazing people in our short existence. We've played with P.F. Sloane, who wrote Secret Agent Man, Thelonious Monster...

Rodney: Whisky Biscuit, Lou Barlow...

Brentley: Skunk Baxter, Miles Joseph, who played with Aretha Franklin.

John: Tim Anderson and Alex Ebert from Ima Robot joined us onstage and we did Satellite of Love by Lou Reed and Transmission by Joy Division at one of our recent shows. I'm forgetting many, but it's been a pretty interesting run.

What sort of things are in your frequent playlist?

John: Lately, M. Ward, Sparklehorse and always Tom Waits.

Rodney: I'm a big Bright Eyes fan. I've really been enjoying Aretha Franklin lately and Postal Service I enjoy that nowdays. I also really love those two Shins records, (Oh Inverted World, Chutes too Narrow), but I've burned them out, to much repeat listening. But they're pretty brilliant song writers.

Brentley:I've been listening to a lot of Roy Orbison, pretty eclectic lately, David Bowie. The most modern band that I got into recently was the Killers. I had a short stint with loving that record.

The music industry is in flux, with the new paths of digital distribution and the increasing power of indie labels. Are you guys going it alone, or are you part of the big music machine?

Rodney: No! We are not part of a big music machine.

Brentley: We're part of a small music machine...

John: We stopped pretty quickly, kinda looking for help and decided to just kinda go on our own. If ever we're lucky enough to have a relationship with a label we would love, I think we'd come at it out of a place of strength, by kinda...owning our own publishing, having done enough by ourselves to know when stuffs done right or not.

Rodney: We've been selling CDs pretty consistently on the web on CD Baby and selling a lot of CDs at shows. We didn't know at the beginning but through experience we're becoming bigger and bigger fans of DIY...

Brentley: Of who?

Rodney: Do It Yourself...

How much of your promotion is going to be done through your website, and things like MySpace and blogs?

Rodney: Again, we do quite a bit of promotion through the web. We're selling CDs on CD Baby. We just launched our website at www.kingstraggler.com. And we've got a nice page up on Myspace. Have I missed anything?

LA's got some good food, but nothing beats Texas BBQ. John was in an Austin-based band, so he must know of the good places. You guys going to do a culinary tour of the city? (Warning: Food in Austin contains calories and is thus actor-unfriendly.)

Rodney: Dammit Ben, we're musicians! I like to say, we're musicians who act to pay the bills...

John: Right...uh, foodwise, Austin's got amazing food. You can't really find Tex-Mex anywhere. Even if you go to Dallas it's a different vibe. Austin's food is terrific and hopefully we'll get out to the outlying areas. You know, it's a little way to drive to get the best bar-b-que, but if we have time we'll head out...

You're playing at Threadgills in Austin on Wednesday the 18th. How does it feel to be playing in the live music capital of the world at one of our most famous clubs?

Rodney: It feels amazing. I'm totally honored and excited about it. John lived in Austin, I've never been to the city. I've just been kind of, you know, weaned on it's legend and I'm totally excited just to be in the city. And to be playing music in "The Live Music Capital of the World" is just gravy. It's an honor...

Brentley: Is it considered "The Live Music Capital of the World", more so than Nashville? (Brentley's from Nashville)

John: Yeah, there's always been a big battle back and forth. I think Austin calls itself that because it's kinda like the San Francisco versus New York thing, where Nashville's kinda seen as the 'Big Machine' in Austin. You know, Nashville's where they take country music and hammer it flat and make it bad. It's not true of course but that's how it's viewed. Obviously, Brentley, coming from Nashville, you know there's unbelievable musicians and music coming outta there...

Brentley: Hmmm... Okay, I'll give you guys a chance, I'll give Austin a chance...

John: Yeah, give us a chance, give us a chance. We'll see...

King Straggler at Threadgills
Wednesday, May 18
$10
King Straggler's Web site