You blinked and missed it. OK, call me unreasonable, but a couple of weeks ago, one of the best albums ever produced by a Fort Worth band came out, and no one really noticed. There was no cover story in Texas Monthly, no interview on KERA, no parade down Main Street.
There was a CD release party, at Lola’s Saloon, which was well attended but not slammed. There has been some airplay, on KTCU, KXT, and The Edge, but not enough, considering the quality of the product in question. And the album doesn’t seem to have captivated the average 817 hipster’s imagination –– I know a lot of local music lovers and musicians, I have beers with a lot of local music lovers and musicians, and when we talk about local bands, and I mention said album, When We Were Wild, by The Orbans, I get either a “Oh, I haven’t heard it yet” or a “Yeah, it’s pretty good.” “Haven’t heard it yet”?! “Pretty good”?! What has everyone been smoking?
When We Were Wild is a roots-rock masterpiece, a rollicking listen full of highs and lows, loaded with grit and snappy beats. Chances are that while you may have heard one or two of the tunes on the radio, you didn’t know they were by Fort Worth’s answer to Wilco and the Old 97’s –– and by the Fort Worth band that’s most readily primed for a breakout year. The Orbans are in the middle of a small tour that will take them throughout Texas and into Los Angeles, and the track “Like a Liar” will soon be featured as NPR’s Song of the Day. When We Were Wild, which is available now on iTunes, could be The Orbans’ ticket to stardom, bought with their own blood and sweat. “We are not really waiting on specific deals or whatnot from the music industry to make us ‘big,’ ” said bassist Cliff Wright. “We’re working our asses off, and everything we have accomplished up to now has been on our own. We’ve made music videos, booked tours, made records, all absent of any traditional record label or industry people.
“We have the first piece, a great record,” he continued, “and now we are focusing on putting together the right team around the band: management, booking, attorney, publicist, and, if needed, a label. We’re being patient to add the right people to this, not just the first opportunity that comes along. … While we’re a newer band and still young, we have plenty of experience to avoid some of the traps bands [fall into] out of desperation.”
All of the guys in the band have been doing music for years. Guitarist Kenny Wayne has played in Chatterton. Bassist Wright and keyboardist Justin Pate, who has also played with Ringo Starr, were in Horses together. And drummer Blaine Crews (who joined after the album was recorded) is late of The Campaign and has played in Luke Wade’s No Civilians. The Orbans started out, in ’08, as Lifters (no “the”) and recorded an EP, Switchblade Waterpistol. Two songs from that era, “Don’t Lose Yourself” and “Alibi,” were revamped for When We Were Wild. “ ‘Alibi’ was one song we had so much fun playing out that we didn’t want to stop,” said frontman Peter Black. They decided it was a good choice for the album, “to at least attempt and see if it had more of the grit and stuff that we wanted to it. I think everybody was really happy with it.”
When We Were Wild was recorded in the late summer and early fall of 2009 at Cedar Creek Recording in Austin and Fireproof Recording Studio in L.A., home of producer Adam Lasus, who has helmed albums by major indie players Yo La Tengo and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Lasus “is a crazy dude,” Black said. “He’s a lot of fun, and he definitely knows what he’s doing. … He’s very positive and up and kept everybody going and just brought out the best in everybody, because that’s one thing we struggled with before. It’s tedious work, doing recording, and he’s just so focused and keeps it very light and fun. If anybody started slowing down, he’d come by with these quick-dissolve B-12s. He’s say, ‘Eat this. Have some snacks.’ ”
Lasus has been a fan of The Orbans since he mixed Switchblade Waterpistol. The Orbans met him through a mutual acquaintance, Jordan Richardson, drummer for Ben Harper and the Relentless7, EPIC RUINS, and formerly Oliver Future. Cedar Creek was recommended by Lasus, mainly for its vintage gear but also because it was home to engineer and longtime Lasus collaborator Adam Odor. “We just kind of moved in,” Black said, “and we were there for about two weeks.”
The band just felt the time was right to go into the studio. “I think it was the point when we we’re playing more new Orbans-esque songs than Lifters ones,” Black said. “We started to push the EP tunes out. Once that became dominant, then we started thinking about the record. And we thought about the record for a long time.”
The band originally recorded parts of When We Were Wild in Dallas with producer Salim Nourallah, who’s done production work for the Old 97’s and their frontman, Rhett Miller. “We have just the best things to say about Salim,” Black said. “It just wasn’t the right place for us.”
Part of the problem was getting to Dallas, especially after everyone had finished work at their day jobs. “We’d get there at 7 o’clock and try to get creatively up and running,” Black said, but by that time, “you’re looking at 8:30 or 9,” and Nourallah did not want to go past midnight. “Plus,” Black said, “people had to work the next day, and so [the recordings] sounded good, but we just got to a point where we were listening to it … and we were like, ‘That’s not it. Those are the songs, but that’s not it.’ And Salim agreed.
“It was a combo of different variables that we may not ever understand,” Black continued. “We’d just wrecked the van –– we got hit by a drunk driver –– and we were dealing with all that mess, and there were just all these other things going on that I think were distractions in one way or another.”
To take another crack at the album, the bandmates agreed to “get everyone away,” Black said, “and remove the jobs and all those restraints and get those things off the mind, too, and I think it was really obvious once we got to [Cedar Creek] and started doing pre-production, just taking those things away brought something really nice to it.”
The band brought about 16 songs to Cedar Creek, fully intending to pare the collection down to a more manageable number. The resulting dozen are totally cohesive, a testament to the band’s singularity and vision. The album comes on strong, quiets in the middle for a bit, rises up again, and then slowly wafts away, courtesy of the acoustic closer “Go,” hearkening back to such recent classics as Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne, long-players suffused with gumption, grace, and some classic-rock balls.
When We Were Wild opens with “New Dress,” a college radio single if ever there was one, a rowdy, enthralling blast of twangy guitars and a barreling beat about a romance that needs a fresh start. Black’s voice is plaintive yet in control, especially during the bombastic chorus. The song must be a lot of fun to play live.
The Orbans quote Southern-fried classic rock (Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Band), but they aren’t revivalists. Though most of the songs hinge on raw, muscular sonic motifs –– chewy riffs, splashing drums –– the production work is flawless and hyper-contemporary. Any nods to the past are more reverent than gratuitous. “Barely Someone Known” is a mashup of sumptuous Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies and heavy, CCR-ish rifferama that somehow works. Credit the band (and Lasus) for blending such disparate elements into a cohesive whole. Listening to When We Were Wild, you can see the analog tape running, feel the wood of the guitars and skin of the drums.
One of the best songs on the album is “Were Her,” a barroom stomper that’s more than just a little melancholy. “I’m still walkin’, you’re on your knees,” Black sings, his voice light and airy, “I feel it / Like a morning breeze / I’m not missing for who you are / I’m missing / For who you were, her, her,” the last words stretching to the stratosphere. It’s an angelic bit of musicianship. A listener too distracted by the Orbans’ retro-ness might write off the genuine heartbreak that informs most of their songs. Desolation, breakups, addictions, pain –– you name it, and The Orbans deal with it, with the shaggy-haired twentysomething Black as your spiritual guide. “’Cause I’ve been drunk,” he continues, “but you’re disabled / Face down on the worn-out table / You taught me the better part of life.” In “New Dress,” Black sings, “Yes, I’ve seen it once before / Seen lust, seen love / Seen it walk right out a door.” Misery loves company.
You’ll be hearing more from The Orbans over the next few months, no doubt. In the meantime, go out and buy the album. You’ll thank me. There’s enough on When We Were Wild that’s familiar: a lot of singing about broken relationships, a lot of pathos, and a lot of gorgeous vocal melodies. The Orbans aspire to membership in the pantheon of irredeemably hip roots-rock artists that includes the aforementioned Wilco and Old 97’s, but the Fort Worth band’s music seems equally at home with the likes of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Are The Orbans post-modernists meticulously repurposing retro in their own image or just idiosyncratic virtuosos? Whatever you call them, they’re brilliant.
The Orbans
w/The Parson Redheads and Delmore Pilcrow Wed at Hailey’s,
