The Wynntown Marshals

How the hell do five guys from Edinburgh end up in a country rock band?

Good question. I’ve been into alternative country, Americana, country rock or whatever you want to call it since the early 1990’s. At first I got into it by way of bands like The Rolling Stones, and then Hollywood Town Hall by The Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo’s records, Wilco and that sort of stuff really got me into it. I met our drummer (Keith Jones) in 2001, and he was into very much the same thing, so we formed a band called The Sundowns. That band imploded four years ago, so Keith and I went on and formed The Wynntown Marshals. But there’s a very fertile Americana fanbase in Scotland.

Was it difficult convincing the rest of the band that you should play country music, and that it didn’t necessarily require anyone to wear a big, goofy hat?

We all share a love of bands like The Jayhawks, Son Volt, Fountains of Wayne and legends like Neil Young, but all of us have hugely eclectic musical tastes. Some of us like 80’s hair metal, Rush, prog-rock, jazz, reggae, a bit of everything to be honest, but where we all come together is with the americana stuff. It didn’t take much convincing. Keith and I had been playing together for a long time, and the other members have also been in different bands before we all got together.

Do you find that this increase in attention towards americana music, including americana made here in the UK, makes it easier for a band like The Wynntown Marshals getting gigs?

No, that’s not easy at all to be honest. It’s something we’ve been finding increasingly difficult in the UK in general. It’s a niche market, and a website like Americana UK is a great place to go if you want to find out about americana music (note from Interviews-Editor – we did not pay Keith to say these nice things about us, however we do agree!), but if I tell people at my work that I play americana music, they get this nonplussed look on their face and they're not really quite sure what you mean. You gotta point them in the right direction, perhaps by mentioning people like Springsteen or Neil Young, just to give them some kind of a reference point. There’s a dedicated americana scene or circuit in the UK, but it’s still becoming increasingly difficult to get a gig and make it worth our while. But also, all of us have jobs, so it’s also difficult for us to find time to get away from work, family and so on.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I mean, these days, you’ve got Bob Harris on the radio, and Clubhouse Records releasing eclectic collections of UK americana, but ten years ago, all you pretty much had was Alan Tyler and The Rockingbirds. Seen from a band perspective, don’t you feel a larger understanding of the music you play?

Yes, and I couldn’t agree more. Ten years ago, Uncut would be championing records like Heartbreaker and Gold by Ryan Adams, big records that would somehow be among the first to cross that divide from something that was indie and unknown to become almost like coffee table albums, just as other albums from other genres, like Portishead’s Dummy or Air’s Moon Safari did. There’s no doubt that americana has become more widely known over the past ten years, also thanks to people like Springsteen recording Americana albums. And that has helped us. There’s a lot more of an environment these days, and people are very complementary when they come to see us. The reviews of the album have been hugely complimentary, but it still remains a challenge to get gigs and to get people to come out of their comfort zone to book an americana or country rock band. Venues have more and more difficulties making money, and even though you might draw a decent crowd in, is that crowd decent enough for the venue or the promoter to make enough money? Our drummer Keith Jones is very much involved in that whole environment, he’s been promoting bands for ten-fifteen years, and he’s been bashing his head against a brick wall trying to get us gigs.

Tell me about the songs on Westerner, please

I like that whole storytelling genre, you know, songs like Neil Young’s Powderfinger, which we actually often play live, songs about the Civil War and so on, so some of these songs were written from a storytelling perspective. I also like writing songs from a historical point of view, where I can put myself in a place where I obviously haven’t been, and then again, a bunch of the songs have also been inspired by more personal things, like travels I’ve made. I took a roadtrip through the US with my wife a couple of years ago, and that has certainly influenced some of the songs. But there’s also a song about the world’s only albino gorilla. That’s the song Snowflake.

A song about an albino gorilla? If that’s not alternative country, then I don’t know what is! Did you grow up on country music?

My dad was a huge influence on me. He always played a lot of Byrds in the house, a lot of Neil Young and early 70’s Stones, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Mainstreet, Let It Bleed, the albums that had country influences on them. In my early teenage years I was very much into heavy metal. That’s what me and all of my friends would listen to, but then I was given a copy of Hollywood Town Hall and that was the album that completely turned me around. It’s still one of my top 5 albums of all time, and I still pick it up very often I must have been 17 when I first heard it, and it was just amazing.

Hollywood Town Hall really had such a huge impact on you?

It was life changing, mate. I remember walking around this small village I grew up in, and it had been snowing, just as it had been on the cover of that record where they were all sitting outside the Hollywood Town Hall. It just spoke to me so clearly in this really amazing and clear voice. It still gives me the goosebumps just talking about it. When one of the songs from that album pops up on shuffle on your iPod, it just brings out a great smile. It’s also the type of album my dad and I can share. It got him into the Jayhawks, and I remember him driving me and one of my friends down to Edinburgh to see the band once. They did a signing at the local HMV before the gig -  coincidentally, although our paths would not cross for another 10 years or so, our pedal steel player Iain Sloan was also at this in store appearance, and we got our autographs, and during the gig, Mark Olson recognised me in the crowd, reached down and shook my hand. That was just an amazing experience. After Olson left the band, I was still a huge fan, and The Sound of Lies, the first one they did without him, was still a good record. But after that, the music did seem to go downhill a bit.

Rubbish. Rainy Day Music is the best record they’ve done!

Well, a couple of the guys from the band really love that record, but for me, apart from a couple of songs like Tailspin, I still prefer their earliest (Def) American records.

Does your dad like Westerner?

Oh, he loves it. He’s always been very supportive and proud of the band, and he’s helped us out a lot. He’s helped us organize gigs up in his neck of the words, in north east Scotland. We can always get the punters in up there, and my dad loves it.

So now the album is out, and has been for some time. What’s going to happen now?

We did a session with Bob Harris recently, and that was a really cool thing to do. He’s hoping he can get us to play the Truck festival next summer. We’re also looking to do a session with Ricky Ross, the former Deacon Blue singer who’s got an americana show on Radio Scotland on Friday nights, and we’re also mixing a live ep at the moment of a show we did a couple of months ago. Our agent in Holland has already lined up a few shows in Holland in April and more shows will be lined up on the continent in the new year. We’ve also got a UK tour planned in February with guys from Magnolia Summer and Dolly Varden.

You can also get The Wynntown Marshals for your iPhone. You must be the first country rock band in the world with its own iPhone application!

Haha! I don’t know. I know there’s a fan made one for Wilco that someone did, but we may well be one of the first americana bands with its own iTunes app.

What does it do?

Well, it’s more of an extension of our website where you can read news, see upcoming show, buy the record and listen to a few tunes. It’s brilliant that these smart phones let you get in touch with your fanbase, if you’ll let me go as far as to call it a fanbase, but it’s nice being able to let people know what’s happening with the band. I only got an iPhone a couple of months ago, so I’m still getting used to how these things work myself.

The Wynntown Marshals' fantastic Westerner is out now on Charger Records. Their iPhone app is also out on iTunes. For more, go to Thewynntownmarshals.com