Lexington, KY - After playing guitar and trumpet for two of Lexington's most popular local bands, The Swells and The Big Maracas, for nearly a dozen years, Warren Byrom took the first steps to making his debut solo project a reality in the winter of 2008. Two and a half years later, after numerous takes, re-takes, pauses and reworkings, Byrom's hard work paid off, and he finally had his hands on a box full of his debut CD, "The Fabled Canelands."
Released in June of this year, the album was recorded at various locations in Lexington,
including the home studios of local audio engineers Otto Helmuth and Tony Miller, Byrom's own living room, and finally, the full-service Shangri La Studio on on National Avenue. It's a collection of 10 songs, opening with a poem by the late Kentucky poet James Baker Hall, "That Kite."
The album features an all-star cast of local musicians, including fellow bandmates Chris Sullivan Scott Wilmouth and Andy Mason, as well as Robbie Cosenza (Fanged Robot, These United States), Daniel Mohler (The Other Brothers) and James Friley (Idiot Glee), and while instrumentation ranges from organ and piano to violin, trumpet and steel guitar, at the center of every song are Byrom's vocals: stark, intimate, honest and moving. The album, equal parts modern and timeless, folk and country, has a decidedly rustic Kentucky vibe.
Byrom spent a couple of years living in New Orleans, returning to Lexington after Hurricane Katrina. The songs were mostly written during the time since he returned, and many were inspired by the book "The Frontiersman," a well-researched historical novel by Allan Eckert that centers on the life of Simon Kenton, a frontiersman who played a key role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement.
Warren Byrom and The Canelands will perform at Al's Bar on Friday, Oct. 7. You can listen to the album at warrenbyrom.bandcamp.com, and purchase the disc at CD Central or directly from the artist. E-mail warbyrom@gmail.com for more information.
What are you currently listening to?
I had Dave Van Ronk, the Kinks, Jimmy Reed, and Band of Bees on the YouTube.
Steely Dan's "Aja" is on the turntable.
You spent two years living in New Orleans, and many of the songs that The Swells perform are rooted in that city's historical music scene. How does the culture of New Orleans inform your songwriting and musical taste?
When I was 20, I met some street musicians from New Orleans. I didn't know a lot about the history of the city back then, but I knew that they had made music their life and boiled it down to the essence. They used all the old forms -
bluegrass, jump blues, spirituals -
and brought an immediacy and a rawness to it all and treated it so matter-of-factly...
and this is day in day out, in the hot sun, get up at dawn and go hold the spot kind of thing. It was just a given that if you were serious and had that kind of hunger for it, then you went straight to the source.
Creating a solo album that centers on lyrics and vocals is quite a departure from the music you have been making with The Big Maracas and The Swells for so long. What led you to pursue this direction?
We'd been playing a couple of songs (that appear on this album) in The Swells, but for the most part they were just floating around, sort of disconnected, and I wanted to hear what they really sounded like. It took a while to figure out what worked in the studio, and it was a pretty slow learning curve sometimes, but I'm glad I took the time to do it how I wanted. It was important to finish it for different reasons, but I had to do it right.
I had just gotten to the point where I was tired of being careless with the things that mattered to me.
What are some of the pros and cons of being a musician in Lexington compared to a place where music has a stronger influence on the culture?
There are so many good bands in Lexington, and I would call that an asset, and it's a pretty tight community with a lot of respect for each other. I'm sure bigger cities have more opportunities, but there's a lot of vitality here.
You employed the help of Kickstarter, and lots of help from friends and locals in the industry. Any advice you have for musicians who are looking to release their own album -
on a budget?
Yeah, there was a period of inactivity on the project that lasted a few months. I kept making excuses about money and [local sound engineer Otto Helmuth] finally called me and mentioned Kickstarter as a way to raise funds and get the ball rolling again. I was lucky that so many friends got behind it, and that was just as important as the money it raised. And I would recommend them to someone trying to finish a record.
What other projects do you have up your sleeve?
I'd love to do a 45 (rpm) ... and in the next couple months start demoing songs for the next record, but the actual recording, which I'd like to do mostly live in an old warehouse, probably won't happen until the spring.