|
From The Boston Globe In case anyone doubts how hard she's been working on her music career, Erika Wennerstrom has three worn-out CD burners as proof. Wennerstrom is the singer and guitarist for Heartless Bastards, a garage/blues/rock band based in Cincinnati. When she first started the band, she was bartending and burning copies of a five-song EP she had made. ''I'd make all the copies on my computer and then put some in my purse every night and give them to people at the bar," she says from her home. Her voice is coarse and gritty, enough so that I wonder aloud if she's been ill or exhausted recently. ''No, I'm not sick or anything," Wennerstrom says. ''That's my voice." It's a voice that quakes in and out of moments of bravado, sounding like an update on classic urban-blues belters such as Bessie Smith -- thus the blues comparison. Wennerstrom, 27, has heard all the comparisons to the Melvins, PJ Harvey, Aimee Mann. But the one that really got her was Gwen Stefani. ''I couldn't see that one at all," she says. ''Someone else called it glam blues, which I thought was maybe like B. B. King combined with Motley Crue or something. But we have so many influences that I can usually see where people are coming from. Except Gwen Stefani." The band, which originally featured a revolving lineup of musicians, is currently a trio, with Mike Lamping on bass and Kevin Vaughn on drums. But that doesn't mean it's a final lineup, Wennerstrom says. ''I don't know if I want it to stay that way," she says. ''Sometimes the songs sound different to me because I wrote them with four parts in mind, for two guitars instead of one." The flip side is that it's easier for her to write lyrics since she has fewer melodies to contend with. Her lyrics also hew closely to blues themes, primarily the idea of resiliency. ''My new resolution is to be/ Someone who does not care what anyone thinks of me/ Cause I don't even like myself half the time," she sings, completely devoid of irony, on ''New Resolution," from the band's debut, ''Stairs and Elevators." They record for Fat Possum Records, an indie label in Oxford, Miss., notorious for unearthing forgotten bluesmen such as R. L. Burnside and T-Model Ford. The Fat Possum deal almost didn't happen, however. Matthew Johnson, the label's founder, had heard Heartless Bastards when the band opened for the Black Keys, a Fat Possum artist. A few months later he was trying to call Wennerstrom, but he was using a disconnected number listed on her old EP. He sent her e-mails that were intercepted by spam filters. Finally he got through. ''One night I came home," she says, ''and Mike [Lamping] had left me a note saying, 'Why didn't you tell me that Fat Possum wanted to talk to us?' I was like, 'Are you serious?'" Johnson was serious, and he invited the band to New York and booked some studio time. The band drove to New York from Cincinnati on four hours of sleep and, by Wennerstrom's account, sounded pretty horrible in the studio. Regardless, the next day Johnson offered Heartless Bastards a contract, which Wennerstrom then pored over, seeking legal advice from anyone who might dispense it. ''You know, a lawyer is expensive and everything, so we actually took a long time to send it back," she says. ''You don't want to rush into anything." Wennerstrom says she's comfortable with the progress the band has made, even though its members haven't yet completely ditched their day jobs. Lamping occasionally works for his family's janitorial supply company, and Vaughn is a pizza deliveryman. Wennerstrom finally quit bartending, though she says it might not have been the best decision. ''We're making enough money on the road to pay our bills, which is really nice," she says. ''But I forgot to allow for the month when we might not have a gig or something. But it's still pretty wonderful to be doing this." |