When it comes to lending her voice to a Heartless Bastards song, singer Erika Wennerstrom's thick, warbling voice is like a hearty, multi-textured delicious homemade sauce that complements her band's ever changing rock and roll surroundings with an extra kick of sweetness and kick. There are equal bits of beauty and urgency and anger and hopefulness that kick down the door for your attention.
Wennerstrom can belt out her soul into the heavens or caress it, all while providing tales of a rough and tumble busy world that's full of opportunities and tough times.
This is clearly evident in last year's (and the band's third album) "The Mountain," a collection of songs which play the part of the heartbroken or lost soul trying to find a way to come out of the haze and rise to square one and up back to the summit.
The Heartless Bastards at their core play a fiery mix of rock and roll that's gotten comparisons to some of the greats (most notably Wennerstrom getting compared to a young Robert Plant from Rolling Stone) but on the latest Wennerstrom and her bandmates branch out their sound further. Some songs feature some acoustic, blues and country/bluegrass tinged sounds with mandolin, fiddle, banjo, steel guitar and other instruments that accent her strong lead vocals just as well as the traditional rock ones.
None of that progress would likely have turned out as well without a strong musical upbringing in the Ohio music scene. Wennerstrom played the part of the romantic rebel with heart for discovery, catching as much music as she could (even sneaking in underage to concerts) and soaking it all in. When it came to picking a name for the group, a trivia game question asking for Tom Petty's backing band offered an inspirational answer of "Tom Petty and the Heartless Bastards."
The sound they produced with the new name brought them some luck and added attention, most importantly from the Black Keys' drummer Patrick Carney. Carney caught one of their shows in Akron and helped get the band signed to Fat Possum, which the band released their debut and following albums for.
Wennerstrom is the one constant through the band's seven years, with several lineup changes but maintaining some of the same fiery spirit. For her, "The Mountain" came after a very emotional period, with her split with longtime boyfriend/bassist Mike Lamping and relocation to Austin, Texas where she mined her feelings and thoughts about her next move.
Like creating songs, life for Wennerstrom and the rest of the band can sometimes be a bumpy, mysterious thing. Sometimes things like late band calls, limited time to eat and even an unfortunate bee sting can make planning during a tour unpredictable. Prior to the band's performance at Turner Hall, OnMilwaukee.com talked with the band's commanding singer about making music and living a busy and hectic life on the road.
OnMilwaukee.com: Now that the latest album's been out for a while, what do you think of the songs and how well they've aged?
Erika Wennerstrom: Well I wouldn't be continuing to tour and support the album if I didn't believe in the songs...I think they sound stronger and stronger each time we play them. I personally feel that a good song is always a good song. I write songs that I like so they don't really get old for me.
OMC: "The Mountain" added some new elements to the band's sound and found you coming from a very emotional part in your life. How would you describe the band's sound and its progression and about writing about getting over what I guess you could call an emotional mountain?
EW: I would describe the band's progression as wanting to try new things. I don't ever want to make the same album over and over. I like to try out a lot of new things and like a lot of different types of music, anywhere from bluegrass to certain kinds of metal. The subject of a good part of the album is not specifically about the split from a 10 year relationship, but more about the recovery from it. It was a very difficult adjustment.
OMC: It sounds like you had a pretty exciting life growing up musically speaking and made every effort to see and hear music. Could you talk about that and what you learned?
EW: I use to sneak in bars when I was 17 to see bands play. We had a great local music scene at the time. Guided By Voices was making waves, and Kim Deal from The Breeders and Pixies was working on her project The Amps locally. There was a band called Brainiac, which was doing very well also but a tragic car accident cut the bands career short. There were a lot of other great bands at the time too.
I think seeing multiple bands doing well outside of their home of Dayton OH made me feel early on that you could live in a small town like Dayton, and go places in music. As long as you write good songs, and are willing to tour where you live isn't necessarily an obstacle. Smaller towns are a lot cheaper to live in also. It can make it easier to concentrate on making art rather than balancing three jobs to pay the rent.
OMC: How did seeing all those bands influence your aspirations to be a singer?
EW: I'm sure it inspired me to be a singer but I always wanted to be a singer before that and that probably was why I was so drawn into sneaking into those clubs to begin with. It did help me realize that bands that were doing really well at the time like the Breeders and Guided By Voices. Seeing bands like that made me feel like my hopes could be more of a reality than if I hadn't seen them. It was definitely inspiring.
OMC: How would you describe your songwriting process like and how's it changed over the years? What's your strategy in coming up with lyrics?
EW: I always get melodies in my head first. I will be running errands, sitting in traffic, or any number of things and a melody will just appear in my head. I'll concentrate on it for a moment to try to help to not forget it, and then when I have a chance to work on it when I‘m home, I will start to try to figure out guitar chords and rhythm. Every once and a while I'll pick up a guitar first. The lyrics are always a big challenge for me. Since I already have the melody I need to figure out what I want to say in a way that fits to the rhythmic pattern of the melody.
OMC: What typically does a song need to have to be considered the best it can be for you and the band?
EW: Well I don't think it's that simple. I don't think there's a secret ingredient to making a good song... Each song has its own little character and ingredients and [the song] tells me what it needs. ...If I had to say something I'd say sincerity. I just write songs I like, and hope people respond to them. I won't introduce songs to the band until I've played it dozens of times to myself. I have to make sure I'm really into the idea myself before playing it for others.
OMC: What's life in the band like? What's unique about this set of people?
EW: We all get along great. No drama. I've known Jesse and Dave for over 10 years. Mark joined the group in 2009, and he was actually our sound man for the fall of 2008. We had heard he was a really good guitarist, and got along with him so well we asked him try out. Dave is the only driver on tour. He just really likes to drive, so if you see him at our show playing the drums you'll know he got us from point a to b that day.
Mark is the guy that will say anything. He can be a bit offensive at times, but he's got a heart of gold, and we all love him for it. Jesse Is like your grandpa that spikes his coffee with whiskey for breakfast but always keeps it together. Jesse is co-pilot to Dave in the van. They are the Spock and Kirk of our little enterprise. I love my band. They're a group of truly dependable people you can always count on. They're always willing to lend an ear as am I. We're like a family.
OMC: In the past year the band's gotten added attention. How has the band adjusted to this and yourself with the lofty comparisons including the Robert Plant one?
EW: I don't think I've had much time to think about it. I definitely feel that we've become more well known and sold more albums and there's more people at the shows but I don't really that different. I just feel like a normal person, an average person.
I've gotten compared to so many different singers it's kind of funny. I've been compared to Robert Plant, Chrissie Hinde, Cat Power, and Joey Ramone to name a few. None of which I think sound anything alike. Most of the singers I've been compared to I am a fan of so I generally take it as a compliment. As far as adjusting, I don't know if we've had much time to think about it. We we're on tour most of last year. We did Letterman, Kimmel, Austin City Limits on PBS, and an appearance on Friday Night Lights also. We get approached sometimes, but not enough to where it's something that requires adjusting to. It's usually a really nice fan in somewhere like an airport, and they say hello. That kind of stuff makes our day.
OMC: What can you tell me about the next album which you'll be working on after this tour or any ideas for where you'd like it to go with it?
EW: I've got all the song ideas in my head now, but I'm still working them out. I think the songs will sort of tell us where they want to go so to speak. I'm not really sure where that is yet. I will say I'm really into the ideas I have right now, and feel really good about this next album.
