Honky stomps and
phones bemoaned

>> Ben Bridwell and his Band of Horses
seek out Southern comfort

UNBRIDLED: Ben Bridwell (c) and Band of Horses

by ERIK LEIJON

For Ben Bridwell, lead singer/guitarist of Band of Horses, stroking his ever-growing beard in the Palmetto State is working better for him than the eternal dampness of the dreary Pacific Northwest. Although a mainstay in the Seattle music scene, with both his current reverb-soaked indie country group and the folkier Carissa’s Wierd before that, Bridwell had felt his home state of South Carolina calling for some time, which provided the backdrop for Cease to Begin, the group’s sophomore record.

“The album is equal parts Seattle and Carolina,” says Bridwell, who recorded most of Cease to Begin in Asheville, North Carolina, while overdubs and Rob Hampton’s guitars were done in Seattle. “Even at the end of Carissa’s Wierd, I discussed returning home with my family and when it came to the point where we could live anywhere [as musicians], it was time to do it. When we got back [to Carolina], none of us owned anything, so we had to start from scratch again.”

When he finally settled in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, not long after they finished an international tour, Bridwell and the revolving-door line-up (which now consists of Creighton Barrett on drums, Rob Hampton and Tyler Ramsey on guitars, Ryan Monroe on keyboards and Bill Reynolds on bass) decided to work on the next album right away. “We didn’t want to spend too much time on the second record. It was important to keep up with the legs Everything All the Time and international touring gave us.”

The process of writing the second record went much more smoothly than their 2006 debut, Everything All the Time, a record that spawned the hit “Funeral.” Seemingly more confident in his songwriting abilities, Bridwell felt more comfortable with the mic the second time around.

“On the first record, I had so many bad lyrics that I would hide them with the way I pronounce words or with mountains of reverb. Not to say this album has good lyrics, but they have to be a step up from the last one. I thought it was important to establish the scene, whereas the last record was just a lot of lushness where you maybe couldn’t tell what the themes were.”

An obvious subject on “The General Specific” is the return home, where Bridwell proudly proclaims he’s “goin’ back to the South.” He originally wrote the melody as a pop song, but soon changed it to a “honky stomp rocker.” He looks back with fondness, however, at his decade in Seattle, which included a month of homelessness when he originally arrived there.

Bridwell, second only to Iron & Wine in terms of Seattle indie-rocker beard-growing skills, caused a bit of a row earlier this year at a show in San Diego. Upset that an unreceptive crowd raised their cell phone cameras in unison when he started playing their hit song “Funeral,” Bridwell flipped off a disruptive young woman who later retold the incident on her blog.

“It was tough and we were having a bad night,” Bridwell recalls of the night he made a stand against every YouTube-posting asshole. “There were a couple of bad apples that seemed so disinterested and came just to record the one song. There are some things you can’t erase from our culture—more and more people want to share experiences through their phones.”

If it isn’t enough that a crowd of young malcontents only check out your show with the intention of posting some grainy, unwatchable footage on their MySpace page, the song they all pretend to love isn’t even one of the band’s favourites. Bridwell had a tough time recording “Funeral”—which isn’t quite the personal, heartfelt tome many have believed—and it was only completed at the insistence of producer Phil Ek.

“It wasn’t about people dying or anything. To me, it was a complaint of hating Christmas. Thank God they did connect with it, I won’t deny them that.”

With the Drones and Tyler
Ramswey at la Tulipe tonight,
Thursday, Nov. 8, 8 p.m., $20, all ages