Well, I’ve been saying it forever. Now maybe people will finally start listening to me.
With all apologies to JJ & The Rogues and BLKrKRT, The Hendersons are probably the best working 817 artist you’ve never heard of. Don’t worry. There’s lots of blame to go around. Public Enemy No. 1 is Nolan Robertson. Do you know Chris Hardee from Alan? Yeah, The Hendersons’ mastermind is equally freakishly talented but not nearly as freakishly cray-cray. (And I mean that in the best way. Love you, Chris!) Robertson also doesn’t hobnob. Instead of going out and seeing and being seen, he’s totally OK with chilling at home and working on his art. But his biggest sin may have been in treating The Hendersons as merely a studio project. I think they’ve played about five shows total since forming a half dozen years ago.
Oh, but the times, they are a-changin’. The Hendersons, Robertson said, are now a band-band. Proof? On Thursday at The Live Oak Music Hall & Lounge, they are opening up for Leopold & His Fiction, the national garage-rock outfit that has played the Fort a bunch of times over the years (chiefly at the defunct Where House). In addition to Robertson and drummer Zach Mayo, who’s been a Henderson since Album No. 2, 2012’s spellbinding Indian Summer, The Hendersons are guitarist Caleb Stanislaw (Vincent Neil Emerson & The Old Souls) and bassist Kris Luther (The Longshots, ex-The Hanna Barbarians). The Hendersons’ first release, Lotosyros, was composed of “much less demanding arrangements,” Robertson said, “and I was a less demanding bandleader when I was 20.” Though Robertson put out a couple singles over the years after Indian Summer, he got distracted from The Hendersons by some, well, headier stuff. “Little effort was made in the following two years to try and mount a new group,” he said. “I just read tons and tons, mostly Greek stuff and Shakespeare, and I also fell deeply in love with Beethoven and studied his scores relentlessly. Classical music is my first love.”
If you don’t give a shit what I say, I’ll let Stanislaw and Luther do the talking for me. They’re both super-studs who would be millionaire session players if they lived in New York City or L.A. Robertson said, “How many times have you been listening to a lead player playing all the notes he knows but saying absolutely nothing with them? Just wanking? Caleb isn’t like that. When he is in the zone, his playing is not only virtuosic but profound. The guy is a seriously talented pro.”
Luther is just as impressive, especially to Robertson. “I’ve known him for a couple of years now, and I’ve always wanted to work with him,” Robertson said. “He learned all of the intricacies of all of my songs in two days. Sponge-brain, man. Freak, even.”
Along with playing out more frequently, The Hendersons want to get into the studio in their new form. And our pleasure will be ours alone. For now.
“Our wish is to play in front as many people in Texas as possible,” Robertson said. “Not thinking too big about touring at present.”
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
