What's Up! Magazine

Keaton Collective

A pair of boots found in the woods buried under some dead, dried-out wildflowers. This image is at the center of the new album from indie-rock-mad-scientists the Keaton Collective. In fact, it will probably wind up being the cover art for the album or maybe a sticker or t shirt design. Wherever this image manifests, it resonates with the same invitation in the band’s new music, an invitation to come drink with us. We have moonshine and we’re thirsty.

I wasn’t expecting to find boots. Or wildflowers for that matter. The internet gave the misleading impression that this band was not so much a band but rather a revolving vagabond jukebox effecting different styles. But their story is much more complicated. Band members Chad Fox, Alex Jones and William Jennings sat down with me in their music bungalow to discuss the band’s history and offer a sneak peek at their new album Time & Pressure.

The name Keaton Collective functioned as an umbrella under which to record. The record label enabled its members to release their own music. “We realized we don’t have any money. To get anything done, we all knew we had to do it ourselves,” said Jennings.

This self-fulfilling attitude attracted a cadre of friends and musicians along the I-5 corridor, eventually forming a roster that included The Braille Tapes, Los Olvidados, and Autumn Poetry. Bellingham’s Fox and Jennings met the other musicians from southern California through mutual tours. They began playing together, functionally not unlike a Sunday flea market: wildly trading shows, music, ideas, and room to crash when touring.

“We’ll always try to put up a band. We know what it’s like. It’s such a good feeling to be welcome on a stranger’s floor,” said Jennings. Fox, for example, visited label mates in Santa Cruz for a month where he recorded much of the first Keaton Collective full length.

In April 2009, as bands on the label morphed and moved on, the decision was made to consolidate efforts. Like so many relationships hitting the half-decade mark, the band members decided to put an end to the long distance relationship and move closer. Seriously closer. Cross state-lines. They decided to move into a house together.

While this may sound like some bands’ worst nightmares, the move allowed band members to practice and record more freely.

“We sacrificed the California sunshine and light beaming down for this. We’d much rather play music,” said Jones. The new incarnation of the Keaton Collective–no longer a record label but a live-in super-band–is a collaborative effort from members of all previous recording projects. The band consists of six core members and a number of fill-in musicians including Bellingham chanteuse Cara Alboucq. “That’s the collective idea. We do almost everything ourselves,” Jones added.

The band has a hand in it all; drummer Ricky Penalba records and mixes the music, they all help press the CDs and packaging (with a conceptual bent towards card-board sleeves and not jewel cases), screen print merchandise, and book tour dates.

They are an undeniably prolific bunch and with the number of videos, songs, and releases that are completed, planned, or in the works, it seems like they are going to be around for awhile. A quick count shows that the label has released almost nine albums. What you can find on the internet is Keaton Collective related projects from before 2009 including the band’s first EP, El Segundo, and a full-length, The Wash. El Segundo’s sound is half-embracing folk rock with supplemental Lynyrd Skynrd and mandolin while The Wash focuses on Fox and band member Adam Taniguchi’s musical past with disenchanted melodies, distorted guitar, and howls reminiscent of Waxwing-era Rocky Votolato.

So, what exactly is the band doing now? They are working on an epic song cycle that will see re-recordings of much of their back catalogue (made real by an actual checklist). The latest on the hit list is the boots/wildflower double-disk of new and previously laid William Jennings’s songs called Time & Pressure. A majority of the album was recorded on a five-day beer drinking, gun shooting retreat up in the hills of Acme. The preview the band offered included “From Trunk to Tale” (swampy, pop harmonies) and “Robin’s Nest” (gruff, whiskey-drenched, oak barrels with hip-thrusting classic rock nuances).

When Jennings described his own sonic palette, he referenced both Joe Cocker and Iron & Wine. I saw Joe Cocker’s gritty re-devised covers as a surprisingly good comparison, as if Jennings was covering and taking new stock of his older material. Of the other influence he explained, “Actually when I listen to too much, I worry I’ll just write a bad Iron & Wine song.” But this album veers away from the conservative, dude-and-guitar recordings of Sam Beam towards a sound akin to Iron & Wine’s jammy, experimental, re-interpretive, live show.

The band will follow this with an album yet-untitled-informally-know-as-Alex’s-record. Then, they will kick of a two-week tour with a free show at Maritime Heritage Park on July 17 at 6 p.m. This well wishing sendoff will hopefully curb past tour misfortune, mostly tainted by multiple, expensive van troubles that began on the first day of that tour. “We got to Fairhaven. We got right out of town and it died.”

Barring any more troubles, they should return in time to share with us the two new music videos they’ve produced, that are currently either not on the internet or ungooglable. Both videos reveal the fruits of their collaborative efforts. They are polished and interesting and remarkable for local no-budget videos. One is a haunting, fuzzed-out cover of “Plastic Jesus” and the other is the waspy, indie rock “Be A Mess” from The Wash debut. Bands take note: making friends with filmmakers is invaluable.

What they are doing is something commendable. They are creating an amalgamation of their collective pasts and putting out records in order to make strides towards more cohesive new material. They are taking the cream of all their crops and playing these songs live. They are experimenting, not for the sake of, but because they are genuinely interested in the music, the boots, and the wildflowers.

Catch Keaton Collective July 17 at Maritime Heritage Park. Catch the band at myspace.com/keatoncollective.

-Hunter Motto