Gothic Theatre
Reckless Kelly
Hopefully fate, and perhaps good sense, will provide a more prosperous road for Reckless Kelly than Ned Kelly, the 19th century Australian bank robber from whom the band takes its name. Despite wearing his trademark suit of armor, the original Kelly suffered the misfortune of being shot some 28 times during his capture. He survived long enough to be tried and hanged.
Despite the handle, the Austin-based band is more spontaneously ragged than reckless, fusing the sounds of rock, country and blues into an Americana creature with eyes in the back of its head. One set looks back to the time honored institution that is sibling harmony, a bloodline that includes names like Louvin, Delmore, and Everly. The other set looks forward, seeking new ways to present alternative country, an always-changing genre of music frequently hamstrung by stasis.
The mix has only grown richer and more assured over six years as brothers Willy and Cody Braun continue to spend hours on stage with drummer Jay Nazz, guitarist David Abeyta, and the latest addition to the Kelly gang, bassist Jimmy McFeeley. The sound first hinted at on Millican (1998) has enjoyed the ebb and tide of collaboration, from more raucous, electric workouts to the sparer acoustic settings as captured on 2000’s Acoustic: Live at Stubbs.
The new Under the Table and Above the Sun is a genuine alternative to country by a band too caught up in its own pursuits to worry about what is and isn’t classified as country rock and its many incarnations. We really wanna reach as many people as possible, Cody Braun says. We’d love the tour buses and all that stuff. But we want to do it our way, playing our music, by our rules. Without being anti-anybody, we’re willing to play the game a little bit. And long as we can play our music we’ll be happy.
Under the Table plays like an old friend with new stories. The brothers Braun harmonize as only brothers can, and Willy’s propulsive acoustic guitar lines dance with his brother’s fiddle and mandolin, both accentuated by Abeyta’s cross-cutting guitar.
Reckless Kelly’s roots reach back to Idaho and Oregon, where the Willy and Cody Braun paired their state-required education with a musical school of learning taught by their father. Muzzie Braun and the Boys (that also included other members of the Braun clan) took to the stage, playing western swing regionally, as well as on the Grand Ole Opry and the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
By their late-teens, the Brauns had been bitten by a rock and roll bug and started their own band in high school. After their first incarnation hit the skids, they ran into Nazz, and formed a new alliance, one that would shape their sound. The alt-country thing was taking off at that point, and that was the direction we wanted to go, Cody says, but with more of a fun, upbeat vibe, as opposed to the put-a-pistol-in-your-mouth sound. We wanted to have that rootsy sound, but have fun with it, rather than have it be depressing.
Reckless Kelly played one final show in the Pacific Northwest before packing the bags for Austin. It was rough in the initial stage, Nazz says, but the chemistry was there. We have this recording of that last show and we listened to it later that night and the next day and I don’t think we were completely aware of how well it was coming together until then. It was like this little sacred product that we had. That’s what made me feel more that this is what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be.
For a band weaned on monthly gigs in the few venues Bend, Oregon, had to offer, Austin created a whiplash effect, with stages available seven nights a week. Prone to familial musical habits, the members of Reckless Kelly took up residence in the same home, leaving only for nightly gigs, including the acoustic sets that Willy says helped the band further define its identity. The stripped down sound helped us get to know each other on stage and know where we were going, he says. It got us tight pretty quick. Before we came here, nobody had any idea what to expect. Once we got here, there was no question, we were tickled shitless.
After Millican, which sold over 20,000 units—and the live album, another studio set, The Day, followed in 2000—while The Austin Chronicle named the them Best Roots Rock Band three years in a row.
Testament to Reckless Kelly’s growth, the band pulled the dozen on Under the Table from a pool of more than thirty songs written by Willy. And the palette from which he draws is broader than the typical monochromatic alt-country coloration. Two songs, Snowfall and Set Me Free, reflect the band’s roots in snow country, written for possible inclusion in the skiing films of Warren Miller. I knew I wasn’t a good enough skier to be in one of the films, Willy says, laughing. So I wrote some songs instead. It’s probably the only alt-country record with two songs about skiing.
Likewise, Desolation Angels captures Willy’s love of the Jack Kerouac work of the same name, playing with Beat rhythm and rhyme. I just like his language and the way he writes, he says. It’s hard not to steal from him. It brings you back to the great line, amateurs borrow and professionals steal. Likewise, Mercy Beat, one of the older songs the band re-worked for the album, tips its hat to George Harrison and the once-fledgling Beatles.
The songs, which had a helping hand from producer/engineer Ray Kennedy (Steve Earle), are also delivered with an organic punch free from the digital waxing and buffing. There’s no reverb on this record at all, Cody says. It’s kind of old-fashioned—going back to the roots of recording. Everything that’s run through ProTools is just pitch-bended and made perfect. This is reality. There are breaths in there, you can hear some clinks and clanks. It makes it human as opposed to being so polished where everything is too perfect.
Clinks and clanks and all, Reckless Kelly find themselves shaping humanly imperfect music out of step with time, startling for its energy and creative restlessness—qualities with roots in the band’s commitment to a rigorous schedule of live performing. And the band’s ways, which keep the performing and recording process always fresh, has allowed for a cycle that lasted longer than any of them initially expected. When we started, we said we’d give it three years, Cody says. We decided after that, we’d do it ‘til we couldn’t do it anymore, or keep doing it because we can’t stand to quit. We’ve been on the three-year plan for nine years now.
