You don’t need anything fancy to time travel: just listen to Kristi Jean & Her Ne’er Do Wells. In their new song “One More Time,” the band — which lands somewhere between rockabilly and Western swing — details their stories of tour debauchery. But it’s so charming that you’d never associate it with the excesses of the ’80s rock stars that also influence Jean: instead, we get a sense of quaint mishaps that bring to mind the good old days. You couldn’t say outright that you went on a bender on the radio, but maybe you could find a way to wink at your audience. There’s something to be said for framing these misadventures as mishaps, as opposed to proclaiming that you can’t feel your face. And charm? Kristi Jean and her band have tons of it.
Here’s what Jean has to say about the band: We live somewhere in the neighborhood of old-school country, western-swing, and honky-tonk-rockabilly. We tried “Honky-Tonk-A-Billy Swing,” but it wouldn’t fit on the t-shirts! This is a true story about traveling on the road – just about any musician who has loaded equipment in a too-small van, dealt with drunk club owners, stayed in cheap motels or band houses will identify with how we made it (somehow) back home ‘One More Time.'”
In our interview, Jean uncovers some feminist Western swing history, tells us about the fairy paintings she’s received from one of her superfans, and how Pet Benatar and Buck Owens brought her to the Ne’er Do Wells.
Who are some of your musical influences?
I started out listening to the old country music my dad used to play on the AM radio in his truck. I grew up in a small town in Texas, so that old-school country music was everywhere I went. I really liked Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Buck Owens and just about anyone I saw on “Hee-Haw.” But my older brothers were into rock-and-roll, and I started sneaking into their rooms to listen to that music, too. I ended up listening to Pat Benatar and Heart quite a bit– some of the hard rocking women that blew me away. Only later did I get into some of the old-school blues like Big Maybelle and the western swing like Bob Wills. So, now I think I have influences from across the musical spectrum, and although I’ve been told my voice has a lot of the traditional country twang, I don’t hear it as much. I think of myself as a blues-rocker; which, I know isn’t as true as I’d like it to be – when I hear the album, I hear the old Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Dolly Parton influences coming through.
Do you start off with the music or lyrics first? Why?
The truth is, I find sitting down to write a song challenging. Other people’s melodies stick in my head so much, and I have a hard time not slipping into an old familiar melody line. Steve (Branstetter; the Ne’er-Do-Wells guitarist) writes all the lyrics, and usually has a rough idea of chords and progression. He plays the chordal ideas, and gives me the freedom to explore some directions and melodies. Somewhere between his original idea and my fiddling around, we come up with the final version of the song.
Do you play covers at your shows? Why or Why not?
We do play some covers, but they are usually lesser-known, very old covers that we feel didn’t get a good shot back in the day. An example is the song “I’m Having a Party All By Myself” (which was on our first album Country-Billy Collision). The song was written and performed by an artist named Charline Arthur back in 1953. Charline was a genuine rebel: she spoke her mind and was often criticized for getting crazy on stage (but when Jerry Lee Lewis did it, it was a trademark) and for wearing PANTS! When she signed her record deal, she was assigned to work with Chet Atkins as her producer. He wanted her music to have that early “Nashville” sound, and he tried to soften and mellow the tunes. The studio version of “I’m Having a Party” was best described as uninspired. However, there is a live version of the song out there on YouTube where Charline did it her way – and it rocked! Ultimately, because she spoke her mind and didn’t toe the Nashville line, she was forgotten about by the end of the 1950’s. It’s songs and stories like this that make us want to revive some of these great classics that never got a foothold.
Have you ever been given something remarkable by a fan?
We have one great fan who comes to see us at our local shows. He communicates with us on social media frequently and is so supportive and charming. He recently took up painting as a hobby. So, at one show he turns up with this MASSIVE oil painting of a nature scene under his arm. (I don’t know how he managed to drag that along with him, but he did!) The painting had fairies and music notes “hidden” throughout the scene, and he challenged us to find all the fairies and tell him how many we found. It was like “where’s Waldo” for musical fairies. We got a kick out of it and kept sending him our guesses via social media (we were always wrong). Because we seemed to enjoy it so much, he showed up with another painting for Steve (the band’s guitar player) and later on he had another painting for Dave (the band’s steel guitar player). They are huge, colorful paintings – we hardly have that much wall space!
Is there a professional “bucket list” item you would love to check off?
For sure. We’ve played all sorts of places as we’ve traveled around (that’s the theme of the song “One More Time!”) , but we have never left the United States. We get a lot of support from fans in Europe, especially places like Spain. We would love an opportunity to tour in Europe sometime. Even if it’s a short tour, it would be so thrilling for us to experience the scene, meet new people, practice our Spanish and French (of which we mostly know food-related or dirty words).
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