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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
Take the soul of Townes Van Zandt, the voice of Sturgill Simpson and the and musical landscape of Willie Nelson and you get a sense of how local musician Brandon — Broke String Burnett — got his inspiration. Fresh off releasing his latest full length independent album “Doppelganger”, Burnette seems to be in a reflective place. This is where we caught up with him during a rainy Tuesday at Lola’s Fort Worth. But Burnett isn’t alone, his entourage includes one of his oldest friends and “Doppelganger” producer/engineer Calan Rawl, drummer John Paul Thomas and bass player Jacob Martinez. The fact that Burnett isn’t going it alone since his humble start as a solo act, shows his maturity as a musician.
“My parents listened to a lot of 90s country while I was growing up, and ‘The Thunder Rolls’ is probably what got me,” he says while partaking his second round of beer. Burnett is relaxed at this point, very matter of fact with a what you see is what you get swagger. He switches between wearing his cowboy hat and taking it off, almost like he’s being respectful but also still wants to wear it. Burnett looks the part with a black denim jacket, a blue pearl snap shirt and a pair of brown lace-ups. “I always felt like I had a bit more personality when I heard music as a kid,” he says. “I would hear it and just wanted to perform it even though I was very shy.”
Burnett says he was fifteen years old when he picked up a guitar for the first time. But his first songs weren’t country songs, instead they were punk rock inspired, since he started out playing on an electric guitar. “You have to love music to begin with, just to have enough gumption to play an instrument, because it takes a lot of time to learn,” Burnett says. “
If learning curves are Burnett’s motivation, then his latest album is no exception. Half of “Doppelganger” was recorded in an apartment with Burnett cutting vocals in his coat closet. The second half of the album, he says, was recorded in his new house, which allowed him to stretch out a bit more artistically. “I just felt like we could make a bit more noise,” he says while looking over at his partner in crime, Rawl. “Yes, we had the time and privacy to play around at Brandon’s house, a luxury we didn’t have beforehand” Rawl reiterated. The end result is a sound the duo likes to call ‘cosmic country’.
Stephen Montoya
“If I could pick a movie for his album to be the soundtrack to, I would pick ‘Lost Highway’,” Burnett says over the sound of oohs coming from his bandmates. “I really wanted to do something that sounded cinematic.” To accomplish this, Burnett and Rawl say they took a 6-month period to edit the album and give it just the right touch sonically. This is after it took an additional 6 moths to write and record the album before the editing process could begin. Plus, to even out the sound, which is Cowtown country meets rockabilly, Burnett assembled a backing band to fill out his once thinner solo material.
One such example of this style can be heard in Burnett’s first single “She turned into a shadow”. This haunting song about something that took pieces one-by-one to build has a great deal of reverb on the vocals while the accompanying music lilts in softly. The opening chords sound like they are being played on a Fender Rhodes before the circular bass line enters the song. Just before the clack of the snare drum hits, a thin line of atmosphere that could be from either a keyboard or string instrument, wanes as the instruments line up. Burnett sings It didn’t happen all at once/ it took the pieces one by one. Almost as if he is autobiographically signing about the process it took to record this 12-track album.
“Calan really built the soundscape for the album, and my songs kind of lend themselves to that,” Burnett says. “For instance, even if a particular song isn’t as spacey as like ‘Stardust’ it still has to convey this sense of scale, it has to still feel large.”
Another aspect of importance for Burnett was the album’s artwork, which was created by an artist named Tokebi. “I found him one day on Instagram and I think he’s done a couple of Mastodon albums, but he does a bunch of skulls … I’m kind of obsessed with skulls,” Burnett says. The album art shows a cowboy looking into three mirrors that all have different reflections of his face in various states of decomposition peering back at him. “We wanted a strong [album] cover, because me and Calan are huge movie fans, so we knew the artwork had to be strong,” Burnett says. “When I was a kid, it was the horror section of the video store, that’s what I was drawn to, was the covers. And on this album, it looks kind of like a graphic novel ‘Twilight Zone’ kind of thing.”
The idea for the album was discovered instead of conceived, Rawl says. “We began recording a handful of songs and then we asked ourselves how we can string these together, because they are all interesting in their own right.” The entrance of the backing band that plays throughout the album was a goal Burnett and Rawl say they had when deciding what to direction to go with during the recording sessions. “Calan asked me if I wanted to scale this back, or if I wanted to go all out,’” Burnett says. “I was like, I want to go all out. I just wanted to make something full, plus the idea was to build a band.” Enter veteran bass player Jacob Martinez, drummer John Paul Thomas, and steel guitar player Robbie Saunders. But auditions weren’t necessary, instead Burnett knew most of the personal that would make up his band by playing in the local music scene.
“I was in a punk band called Dead Words when I met Brandon,” Thomas says. “I did that for 11 odd years, but we weren’t working as much when Brandon asked me if I would be interested in joining his new project.” Thomas says he moved to Fort Worth from Austin, when the recording process for “Doppelganger” started.
“It just happened, I mean the timing was perfect and then Jacob messaged me on Instagram that he needed a band,” Burnett says. “So, it all just worked out.”
Stephen Montoya
Now that album is complete Burnett is busy booking gigs and appearances where and when he can to promote the album. One of the venues fans of local music can find Burnett and his band unveil their version of cosmic country will be at Lola’s Fort Worth opening for the Legendary Shack Shakers and Hillbilly Casino on March 4.
“After our first month together, we began to sound like the band I always wanted us to be,” Burnett says. “Our goal was just to play the songs as much as possible.”
Broke String Burnett’s Top Ten Albums:
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger
Bad Religion - Generator
The Misfits - Static Age
Shovels & Rope - O’ Be Joyful
Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Bad Brains - Bad Brains
Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True
Legendary Shack Shakers - Cockadoodledon’t
