There is a particular and unnamed sensation that accompanies the realization that a band you’ve enjoyed for a while hadn’t really discovered themselves yet, all those times you saw them before. It’s a sharp breath pushing their past performances into the periphery of memory, to be regarded as a soft search of the great sonic something, a feeling out of unlit possibilities, a melodic hand sliding down the tight coiled strings of identity. What was once certitude of virtuosity, in hindsight, is suddenly revealed to be another delusion of expectation. You’d feel duped if it didn’t feel so damn good.
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For fans of James Justin & Co, Places is that moment. For the uninitiated, it is an opportunity to alleviate your thirsty, neglected ears. With their lineup pared down to three musicians, the new album features a radiant harmony between the songwriting and vocals of James Justin Burke, the banjo pickin’ and vocals of Bailey Horsley, and Tom Propst’s upright bass and vocals.
It’s an album of unexpected musical twists, shifts that rush up on you like a wave you didn’t see coming, right out past where your feet touch the bottom. The songwriting is genuine, in that the messages feel timeless and poignant, without any indication that they were forced to be so. These are songs that flirt with the slow burn of Southern gothic desolation, and then plunge into the type of giddy innocence endemic among pop love songs--but you know, lovably. It never dips into the shallows of easy clichés, nor strains at the worn leather of world-weary Americana seniority.
Their music, much like the musicians themselves, is at a crossroads in life, a place of evolution. They have the strength to be effectively honest about their middle-ground wisdom, which, paradoxically, endows their music with a sense of wisdom beyond their years. They split the hills between traditional country and indie Americana like a motorcycle speeding through the landscapes they invoke. It’s a masterfully made wine that you know, regardless of how great it is now, will age very, very well. You can tell these guys have found their rhythm.
James Justin Burke: It’s all songwriting. The songs, all of them come from different inspirations, but you can hear that it’s JJ&Co in all of them. With just banjo and upright bass, it’s much more dynamic, more punctual. Style wise, we were heavier, a little more rock n’ roll when we started, but now it’s a trimmed beauty.
The focus has changed, and that goes back to me downsizing the instrumentation. When you have drums and keys and a lot of electricity on stage, it’s easy to jam and get lost in that heavy sonic thing. But when you break it down, you’ve gotta be dynamic to engage the crowd. You’ve gotta write songs like you’ve never written before. And I put that pressure on myself. A lot of people don’t work well under pressure. I like to put that pressure on my shoulders, and try to write the best I can, and perform the best I can. It’s a service to our fans. We want them to buy Places and be taken to another place. And it was a very easy album to write when that pressure was on.
The album as a whole is transfixing, and I love it, but I’m not sure there’s really one song that grabs me more than the others. And I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. But there’s something to be said about finding palpable authenticity in Americana music right now. It’s become strangely hip, which has endowed the genre with a certain magnetism towards the bandwagon crowd with fanciful notions of popularity and no soul to enforce them. That being said, the album is, to me, slightly overproduced. It’s a notably clean recording, and I just want to hear a little more creak in the floorboards. These are songs that should be recorded in makeshift studios along riverbanks.
It’s a small complaint, and doesn’t really diminish my appreciation of the release at all. In some ways, it actually allows their sound to capture an essence of Wilco, one of Burkes’ biggest influences, and one arguably more prominent than that of Avett Brothers, who seem to be perpetually associated with JJ&Co in the media.
I don’t know why [journalists] always [compare us to] The Avett Brothers, other than instrumentation. The Avett Brothers made banjos and roots songwriting popular again. It’s always been popular and cool to a lot of people, but they’ve broken barriers as far as genres go. But Jeff Tweedy[of Wilco] and Neil Young are my biggest influences.
Unlike Wilco, who seem destined to reside in the most enormously populated epicenters of underground music, sidestepping slightly the boggy canals of radio fame while retaining a huge following of unassailable devotion, JJ&Co may be able to use Places to get their foot in the door of Nashville radio. Not that it’s clear that’s what they’re going for. But with country music and culture enjoying bizarre amounts of mainstream popularity, and indie Americana acts dragging their uprights into the blinding spotlight of perennial fame, it’s a good time to pick a banjo. Especially if your appeal traverses that blurry line between hipster Americana and stadium country without falling into the regrettable realms of either genre.
We encourage people to come talk to us. Some of them will say “you remind me of the Zac Brown Band” and some will say “you remind me of Del McCoury” or Dwight Yoakam. You have your indie kids, and your pop country crowd, and the alternative scene, all together in a melting pot at our shows, and it’s so great to see them collaborate this energy. We try to return it to them.
In other words, they’re a Richmond band, in the best sense. Their musical sensibilities echo the audio-cultural landscape of a town where subcultures comfortable invoking Del McCoury, Wilco, Mumford and Sons, or Zac Brown commingle on common ground. And I get it. Not just because I think Zac Brown is fucking great--but kind of.
It’s hard to put your finger on what makes country radio, well, country, when they play everything from traditional country to Southern rock to straightforward pop with an accent. By the same token, it’s not easy to single out exactly what it is that gives a particular act the street cred required for underground fame. But as an admitted patron of country radio, Jackass Flats shows, barnyard pickin’ sessions, and Tim Barry sets, I get the impression that JJ&Co has what it takes to make it on both sides of the fence. And while I don’t hear Zac Brown in there, at all, there is the common sentiment of a songwriting style shaped by landscapes, front porch philosophies, and the fires burning in the backyard of inspiration.