Thursday, June 16, 2005

Band evolves into a solid brotherhood

POLLY HIGGINS

Tucson Citizen

Michael Drabousky and Brian Anderson were tired of playing in bands. Considering they still wanted to do music, this posed a bit of a problem.

But they had been in enough projects over the years to wonder if they would ever really find that magic combination of people who were actually in sync in terms of drive, let alone chemistry and personality. Not to jump ahead and reveal their current genre of choice, but it was like your stereotypical country song: Maybe that kind of love just didn't exist.

So, early last year, Drabousky and Anderson did what any 30-somethings with accumulated instruments and a decent musical jones would do: They pulled out the 4-track. The plan was to put on their cowboy hats and record a handful of songs. If they ended up playing out, they would hire people. There was just one problem.

"I remember recording and thinking, I want to be in this band," singer-guitarist Drabousky says.

With that dirty, four-letter word in the back of their minds, Drabousky and bassist Anderson approached drummer Jim Howell, who, in turn, happened to see John Oxley the next night. In May 2004, the Wyatts - Roscoe (Drabousky), Country Mac (Anderson), Jimbo (Howell) and Johnny Guitar (Oxley) - were a b-a-n-d band.

A year later, The Wyatts have a full-length CD, a nice chunk of gigs lined up and a forward-moving trajectory that each attributes to equal parts hard work and harmony.

"There's no resistance. I've never been in a band like that," Roscoe says. "The amazing thing about this band is that things just keep falling into place."

The phrase "with age comes wisdom" comes up a lot in an interview with the quartet. As proof, all four offer up what, to them, have been nontraditional approaches to music-making.

For one, there's the genre. The members had pretty much stayed close to rock or pop-rock in their previous musical lives, Anderson in Nevershine, Howell in Truck. Jimbo says he's drawn to country because of "the hon"

The Wyatts also didn't follow the fairly typical road of booking a show and then hustling to write enough songs to fill out a passable set. "Before we played out, we had two sets of songs," Johnny notes.

And, while many bands tend to rest on the work of one or two members, The Wyatts have no divas and no slackers. Tasks are divided - Jimbo books shows, Roscoe handles marketing, etc. - and, perhaps most importantly, everyone in the band shows up for practices with the same drive.

Jimbo, well he's philosophical about it all: "If you work really hard with something, then the opportunities will come to you."

One of those proverbial knocks came with The Wyatt's inclusion on the "United States of Americana," a Shut Eye Records comp that came out early this year. Their contribution was "24 Miles," a tightly arranged song that has a sneaky hookiness to it, thanks to the band's penchant for harmonizing and backing vocals.

The Wyatts, of course, also make opportunities for themselves, hustling their music to radio (that's mostly Country Mac's job) so that they can claim to be on nearly 20 playlists, including at KXCI (91.3-FM) and similarly minded stations. "I have a map, with the little pins in it," Johnny offers. The pins are particularly dense it the Northeast, northern Midwest and California. "In Berkeley, I figured they would run as soon as they saw cowboy hats."

In recent years, though, country music has begun to go through the same kind of rediscoveries that rock has. Overproduced, increasingly hybridized versions of both genres still dominate radio, but, as the music industry deals with mounting financial woes, acts with a keen eye for the past have become increasingly attractive. They pose an alternative, but they're also, generally, a lot cheaper. The Faith Hill machine is slightly more expensive than, say, a Lucinda Williams.

Of course, the bread and butter for a Williams is on the road, and The Wyatts are taking an understandably cautious approach, for now concentrating on live shows at home. Again with the 30-something-ness, all have jobs, three have wives ("I'm the only one not stupid enough," Johnny says), and Jimbo has a bambino on the way.

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