What do you get when you combine Americana and pop-punk? Well, it’s not quite alt-country — and it still rips. Maybe it’s the equivalent of making a cocktail with sake instead of vodka; it’s a little unorthodox, but it’s a lot cleaner and is extra refreshing. That’s the sense I get from Vanessa Peters’ “Aside.”
Peters’ last album, Foxhole Prayers, was a somber affair, so “Aside” feels like Peters shaking off the dust and cutting loose on Mixtape, a collection of covers that range from The Weakerthans’ “Aside,” the Pernice Brothers, and America.
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| Photo Credit: Brent Baxter |
According to Peters, Mixtape has been a labor of love for some time. “We have been working on this record for more than 3 years, recording
bits and pieces here and there between working on my last album
“Foxhole Prayers” and when we weren’t on tour. Almost all of it is just
me and my husband/bandmate Rip Rowan, who produced the album. But
“Aside” was one that we recorded with a bunch of our friends in Texas.
It features the Dallas pop-punk band CLIFFFS as the rhythm section, plus
two other great Texas guitarists, Joe Reyes and Paul Averitt, who came
in to track guitars much later.”
“Aside” was recorded under fortuitous circumstances. “CLIFFFS was actually at our studio in
Dallas, Electrofonic, working on their last album, and late one evening
after they wrapped I asked if they’d be up for learning a new song.
None of them were familiar with The Weakerthans, which is one of my
favorite bands ever, so it was fun to play them the song because
stylistically it’s similar to what they do. Anyway, I wasn’t sure at
the time if we were going to do a covers album where our versions were
faithful reproductions of the originals, or if we were going to try to
turn the songs on their heads. In this case, since I had an awesome
punk band available to work with, we decided to do a rendition that was
more or less exactly like the original. It’s certainly more punk rock
than most of the songs I’ve released over the years, and it was fun to
step into those shoes for a while.”
You’ll hear more from Mixtape on a future episode of Adobe & Teardrops. The album is out this Friday, April 24th.