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HEARTLESS BASTARDS
Heartless Bastards have spent the past decade in motion, boldly pushing their unique brand of rock ‘n’ roll into new shapes over four acclaimed albums and nearly non-stop roadwork. Now, with RESTLESS ONES, the band sets out once again, blazing a path to a place of shifting moods, seasoned songcraft, and unbridled spontaneity. Heartless Bastards’ fifth studio recording and follow-up to 2012’s breakthrough ARROW, the album finds singer/songwriter Erika Wennerstrom exploring as-yet-unvisited avenues of sound and sensation, her bravery and ambition readily apparent in the emotional timbre and the sheer physicality of her songs. “Wind Up Bird” and “Into The Light” are straightforward yet stunningly sophisticated, shot through with layered guitars, atmospheric harmonies, hints of synth, and a powerhouse rhythm section adept at both subtle swing and heavy horsepower. Wennerstrom’s spellbinding vocals are of course front and center, her one-of-a-kind voice as primal, cathartic, and indefinable as ever.
“We took a lot of chances,” Wennerstrom says, “taking the sounds in different directions in order to grow. I don’t ever want to make the same album twice.”
Now based in Austin, the band’s current incarnation – that is, guitarist Mark Nathan, bassist Jesse Ebaugh, and drummer Dave Colvin – united in 2009, touring Heartless Bastards’ acclaimed third album, THE MOUNTAIN, before hitting the studio to record ARROW.
ARROW proved popular success, earning Heartless Bastards’ top album and track sales to date, fueled by multi-format rock radio airplay across the land, high-profile placements on a wide range of highly rated network programming, rave reviews in the likes of Rolling Stone, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, and show-stopping performances on such TV shows as NBC’s Friday Night Lights, CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman, TBS’ Conan, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! The band celebrated with furious roadwork, including sold out headline tours and memorable appearances at such famed festivals as Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Lollapalooza, Pickathon, Hangout Music Festival, Summerfest, Wakarusa Music Festival, Firefly Music Festival, and Austin’s own ACL Music Festival and Fun Fun Fun Fest.
Having spent the better part of two years on tour, summer 2014 saw Heartless Bastards humming on all cylinders and ready to commence work on their next record. Wennerstrom began honing in on the myriad ideas she had accumulated, developing melodies and arrangements though not yet committing lyrics to paper. She experimented with vowel and consonant noises, toying with untested sounds and instrumentation.
GRAMMY® Award-winning producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Swans) was tasked with corralling Heartless Bastards’ collective energy. The band made significant inroads during pre-production sessions, tightening songs and structures but still leaving things open to chance.
“John came down to Austin and sat in with us for a couple of days,” says Nathan. “That was really great – it was important to get an outside ear and it helped make the process more concise. I’ve never seen anybody get sounds as good and as quickly as he does.”
“These songs are about what’s happening now,” Colvin says, “about not looking too far ahead or back. John is a real decisive person, which is great for us as players. He helped us to capture the moment and not worry about it.”
RESTLESS ONES was tracked in August 2014 during a 10-day session at El Paso’s renowned Sonic Ranch. Located on 2,300 acres of pecan orchards bordering the Rio Grande and Mexico, the studio – the largest residential recording complex in the world – provided the perfect setting, miles away from all real world responsibilities and thus able to fully invest themselves in the act of creation.
“When you record in the city you all live in, it’s easy for people to just come in and out of the studio,” Wennerstrom says, “so vocals and guitar parts and overdubs are often recorded without anyone else hearing them. Recording at Sonic Ranch was a way for everyone in the band to experience the creative process and to be able to offer opinions in real time.
The band put their back into the project as one, living together, dining together, always alert to their mission. The communal nature and concentrated schedule of the Sonic Ranch sessions proved an intense but inspirational combination.
“There was no break from the process,” says Nathan. “In some ways, it made the good things better and the bad things worse, but looking back, it was a different experience and I’m glad we did it.
“Sonic Ranch attracts talent from all over the Americas,” Ebaugh says. “We met people from Chile, Argentina, Mexico City. It helps you contextualize your own work to be shoulder to shoulder with other artists from backgrounds so different from your own. It makes you think twice as hard about what you are saying, about your life, and your background artistically.”
The sessions were marked by Heartless Bastards’ openness to the unfamiliar, allowing previously untapped influences – from The Byrds and Syd Barrett to the Faces and the Flaming Lips – to take root in their own distinctive blues-powered rock ‘n’ roll. “Wind Up Bird” is given texture and psychedelic lift via a visit from keyboardist John Baggott (Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters, Portishead, Massive Attack), while the album-closing “Tristessa” was born of Wennerstrom’s home experiments with guitar loops but then grown by the band into a deeply devotional drone.
“We started with sketches and ideas of directions,” Ebaugh says, “but allowed the process of discovery to guide the finalization. It allowed us to think about the songs more globally and really flesh them out.”
“There were some happy accidents,” Colvin says. “Things that were completely organic, that could’ve only happened in that moment. Things are still shifting, nothing’s set in stone.”
Where some tracks were built from the ground up, others were completely upended. First recorded for the soundtrack to 2013’s acclaimed Winter In The Blood, “Hi-Line” was broken down and retooled from front porch folk to Fleetwood Mac-inspired country pop unlike anything in Heartless Bastards’ prior canon.
“‘Eastern Wind’ provided a bit of a road map for the record,” she says. “It’s a song of wanderlust. Writing words is always a real challenge for me, so I end up taking off in my car and roaming around by myself looking for inspiration. I think in doing that I’m taking myself out of my comfort zone. I turn my world upside down over and over and start anew.”
Further insight came from such literary touchstones as Haruki Murakami (“Wind Up Bird”), Jack Kerouac (“Tristessa”), and the late photojournalist/artist/activist Dan Eldon, whose Be Here Now philosophy is at the very heart of RESTLESS ONES.
“I love the idea of ‘The Journey Is The Destination,’” she says, referencing Eldon’s most famous work. “Not looking too far ahead and really focusing on the present. I’ve tended to look so forward that I forget to stop and smell the roses. The process of working towards the things you want in your life is more important than the goal itself.”
“As always, Erika’s lyrical honesty informs the behavior of the whole project,” says Ebaugh. “There comes a time in an artist’s trajectory when you realize that your entire life experience is expressed through the work, so you better be able to relax and let the work reflect the experience that is yours.”
RESTLESS ONES was finished in the fall with two mixing sessions at Congleton’s Elmwood Recording in Dallas. Heartless Bastards’ next challenge is bringing the album’s studio-crafted songs to the stage. “It’ll be fun to chuck it all at the wall and let the collective experience of band/audience dictate the conversation of the music,” Ebaugh says. “That’s the mission ultimately: rock ‘n’ roll communion.
Rich with purpose, passion, and commanding musicianship, RESTLESS ONES captures an idiosyncratic band exploring their craft and soul in an effort to reach a place that’s both true and transcendent. Heartless Bastards continue to drive their monumental music ever forward, towards hidden vistas and horizons still unseen.
HEARTLESS BASTARDS
SHARE NEW SINGLE
“REVOLUTION”
OUT NOW
VIA BANDCAMP
BUY/STREAM HERE | WATCH VIDEO HERE
FIRST NEW MUSIC RELEASE IN FIVE YEARS
PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE ACLU
Austin, Texas-based Heartless Bastards have teamed up with Spaceflight Records to release a digital single, “Revolution,” with a portion of proceeds from all downloads to be donated to the ACLU in support of civil rights. The song will be available July 3 for download via Bandcamp, the site is once again waiving fees to support artists during the Coronavirus pandemic. The track will be available at digital retailers everywhere at a later date.
Lead vocalist, Erika Wennerstrom, explains the new single and says:
“Revolution is about self love. I think if people loved themselves more there wouldn’t be racism, bigotry, and classism. Some people are so worried that there is not enough pie to go around, and that lifting up others limits their own opportunity. There is mass misinformation and manipulation to peddle this narrative. Money, materialism, privileged access to better education are things people constantly measure themselves with. The need to feel better than someone in order to feel good about oneself is an age old insecurity. I think there’s fear there too. So many struggle to get ahead because they’re afraid of getting left behind. The planet really can’t sustain everyone having more. Everything is made to fall apart like cars, and $1100 cell phones. I think humanity needs to learn how to have less, and not play into the commercialism that constantly sends the message we lack things that we don’t really need.
Revolution is a mantra, and reminder to myself to avoid playing the game as much as I can. I don’t need this, and I don’t need that. I don’t need to compare myself to others.This marathon everybody is running is exhausting. There is so much true suffering in this world with a lack of food, shelter, and basic running water, and if you suffer depression and anxiety remind yourself of that, and try to possibly be of service to someone in need, and not even necessarily with writing a check, but with even something as simple as kind energy, and compassion. True connection. The more man attempts to look at the world from another man’s perspective it becomes apparent how connected we all really are. Dave Chapelle said at a show years ago “Poverty is a state of mind.” That really stuck with me. I was in the Amazon several years ago, and it struck me how little people had materially, and children were running around and they all seemed so happy. Aside from the basic necessities of sustaining our lives I think giving and receiving love is really what we need the most. All the rest is just a bunch of noise.”
Taking the name “Heartless Bastards” from an incorrect answer on a multiple-choice trivia game (the question: what is the name of Tom Petty’s backing band), Wennerstrom founded the band in 2003 in Cincinnati. It started as a recording project and evolved into a live band with a revolving cast of musicians, and they began playing regularly throughout the Midwest. When Patrick Carney of the Black Keys saw the band, he liked what he heard and passed along a copy of their demo to his label at the time, Fat Possum Records. Heartless Bastards signed with Fat Possum, releasing their first 3 albums, Stairs and Elevators (2005), All this Time (2006), and The Mountain (2009).
In 2007 Wennerstrom relocated to Austin, TX, and recorded The Mountain. A new touring lineup formed including David Colvin on drums and Jesse Ebaugh on bass, bringing the project in full circle as both Colvin and Ebaugh had played on the original Heartless Bastards demos 6 years earlier. Mark Nathan joined on guitar in 2009, and the band became a 4-piece. They signed to Partisan records and released 2 critically acclaimed records, Arrow (2012) and Restless Ones (2015).
After more than a decade fronting the band, Wennerstrom released the album Sweet Unknown under her own given name in 2018. “It was a deeply personal album and it just felt fitting to use my name. It kind of forced me to allow myself to be a little more exposed, and stand on my own two feet. I feel like I’ve grown so much creatively and personally through this process.”
Now some good news for fans of Heartless Bastards — which has released five critically- acclaimed albums since their 2003 inception, appeared on many late night television shows, and has drawn praise from Rolling Stone, Time, New York Times — in early 2020, Wennerstrom returned to the studio with producer Kevin Ratterman (Strand of Oaks, Jim James, White Reaper), and a new album is in the works.
Fans can also rest assured that what they’ve grown to love about Heartless Bastards is still front-and-center. Wennerstrom’s trademark vocals that NPR so aptly calls “warm yet gritty, throaty yet sweet, gigantic, yet intimate” are that… times 10. And the bluesy, rock vibes that Relix describes as “smoky, late night [rock] that exists somewhere between Royal Trux and the Rolling Stones” has only gotten smokier and bluesier.
HEARTLESS BASTARDS
SHARE NEW SINGLE
“REVOLUTION”
OUT NOW
BUY/STREAM HERE | WATCH VIDEO HERE
FIRST NEW MUSIC RELEASE IN FIVE YEARS
PROCEEDS FROM BANDCAMP SALES TO BENEFIT THE ACLU
Austin, Texas-based Heartless Bastards have teamed up with Spaceflight Records to release a digital single, “Revolution,” out everywhere today. The song has been exclusively available for download via Bandcamp since July 3, and a portion of all Bandcamp proceeds will continue to be donated to the ACLU in support of civil rights.
Lead vocalist, Erika Wennerstrom, explains the new single and says:
“Revolution is about self love. I think if people loved themselves more there wouldn’t be racism, bigotry, and classism. Some people are so worried that there is not enough pie to go around, and that lifting up others limits their own opportunity. There is mass misinformation and manipulation to peddle this narrative. Money, materialism, privileged access to better education are things people constantly measure themselves with. The need to feel better than someone in order to feel good about oneself is an age old insecurity. I think there’s fear there too. So many struggle to get ahead because they’re afraid of getting left behind. The planet really can’t sustain everyone having more. Everything is made to fall apart like cars, and $1100 cell phones. I think humanity needs to learn how to have less, and not play into the commercialism that constantly sends the message we lack things that we don’t really need.
Revolution is a mantra, and reminder to myself to avoid playing the game as much as I can. I don’t need this, and I don’t need that. I don’t need to compare myself to others.This marathon everybody is running is exhausting. There is so much true suffering in this world with a lack of food, shelter, and basic running water, and if you suffer depression and anxiety remind yourself of that, and try to possibly be of service to someone in need, and not even necessarily with writing a check, but with even something as simple as kind energy, and compassion. True connection. The more man attempts to look at the world from another man’s perspective it becomes apparent how connected we all really are. Dave Chapelle said at a show years ago “Poverty is a state of mind.” That really stuck with me. I was in the Amazon several years ago, and it struck me how little people had materially, and children were running around and they all seemed so happy. Aside from the basic necessities of sustaining our lives I think giving and receiving love is really what we need the most. All the rest is just a bunch of noise.”
Photo credit: Charlie Pearce
Taking the name “Heartless Bastards” from an incorrect answer on a multiple-choice trivia game (the question: what is the name of Tom Petty’s backing band), Wennerstrom founded the band in 2003 in Cincinnati. It started as a recording project and evolved into a live band with a revolving cast of musicians, and they began playing regularly throughout the Midwest. When Patrick Carney of the Black Keys saw the band, he liked what he heard and passed along a copy of their demo to his label at the time, Fat Possum Records. Heartless Bastards signed with Fat Possum, releasing their first 3 albums, Stairs and Elevators (2005), All this Time (2006), and The Mountain (2009).
In 2007 Wennerstrom relocated to Austin, TX, and recorded The Mountain. A new touring lineup formed including David Colvin on drums and Jesse Ebaugh on bass, bringing the project in full circle as both Colvin and Ebaugh had played on the original Heartless Bastards demos 6 years earlier. Mark Nathan joined on guitar in 2009, and the band became a 4-piece. They signed to Partisan records and released 2 critically acclaimed records, Arrow (2012) and Restless Ones (2015).
After more than a decade fronting the band, Wennerstrom released the album Sweet Unknown under her own given name in 2018. “It was a deeply personal album and it just felt fitting to use my name. It kind of forced me to allow myself to be a little more exposed, and stand on my own two feet. I feel like I’ve grown so much creatively and personally through this process.”
Now some good news for fans of Heartless Bastards — which has released five critically- acclaimed albums since their 2003 inception, appeared on many late night television shows, and has drawn praise from Rolling Stone, Time, New York Times — in early 2020, Wennerstrom returned to the studio with producer Kevin Ratterman (Strand of Oaks, Jim James, White Reaper), and a new album is in the works.
Fans can also rest assured that what they’ve grown to love about Heartless Bastards is still front-and-center. Wennerstrom’s trademark vocals that NPR so aptly calls “warm yet gritty, throaty yet sweet, gigantic, yet intimate” are that… times 10. And the bluesy, rock vibes that Relix describes as “smoky, late night [rock] that exists somewhere between Royal Trux and the Rolling Stones” has only gotten smokier and bluesier.
Photo credit: Charlie Pearce
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Charlie Pearce
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Charlie Pearce