The Nancys are playing hard to get. They just put out a killer record but don’t plan on playing it or anything else onstage unless the money is right. Apparently, there’s just way too much Nancy to go around.
Driven chiefly by Sean Russell (Cut Throat Finches) and Nolan Robertson (The Hendersons), the pop-rock project also features members of the hard-rocking Arenda Light, plus all the guests who appeared on The Nancys’ rollicking, involved debut Cuss Words.
Russell said he started the band after realizing that the industry has “doubled or tripled” its appetite for collaboration and that collaboration was somewhat lacking in town.
“The product is often better together,” he said.
Photo by Jessica Waffles
Recorded at Niles City Sound (Leon Bridges, White Denim) with Joel Raif, the eight-track record is a fun rock outing with some rowdy, ragtime (?) elements.
“I was really excited to be able to get in there with everybody,” Raif said. “It’s such a great mix of great players, and I was just trying to wrangle cats.”
One of the songs is from 2020. Russell wrote “Evangelicals” for personal, political reasons. Theatrical and satirical, it wouldn’t be a good fit with the Cut Throat Finches, he said, so “I wanted to find a place where I could express the ideas in the writing. Once I had a structure for what I wanted to say, I could’ve written 40 more verses on all the things that piss me off about the evangelical movement. I feel like my faith got hijacked by this political agenda, and honestly a punch in the gut from [a fellow Christian] seems to gain more attention and traction.”
Robertson mapped out the lyrical ideas and brought his dynamics to a lot of the material, Russell said, especially album opener “(I Was Tainted and) It Felt So Right.”
Along with core members Kris Luther, Nick Tittle, and Eric Webb, The Nancys enlisted help from Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra French horn player Alton Adkins and the horn section of Dallas’ Bastards of Soul, who happened to be recording at Niles City at the same time.
It would be nearly unfathomable for The Nancys to play a show with everyone involved — but not impossible.
“If we would do a live show presentation, we will need a full theatrical-quality performance,” Russell said. “Somebody will have money to burn to be spent on this.”
