Artist Spotlight: An Interview With The Reeves Brothers
Take two brothers with a history of performing in their family, mix it with some old school country and a bit of honky-tonk and you’ve got The Reeves Brothers. They just released their newest album, The Last Honky-Tonk on August 28th (review coming soon to The Amp and we wanted to give them an outlet to talk a bit about the album and some of their background for those that may not be familiar with them. So sit back, grab your favorite cold beverage, and learn a bit more about these brothers bringing back the old school sound to today’s country music.
What’s your favorite track on the album? To play? For lyrics?
“Old No. 7 Blues” is a lot of fun to play and everyone in the band gets a lead break so it makes it easy for us all to put our own stamp on it and play some cool stuff. Eugene Moles played the acoustic lead parts in the studio during the first verse and he built a great foundation for the arrangement of that song, along with the dobro. For the lyrics, my favorite is “Farewell.” The words really hit you hard and I think everyone has lived the story. There’s a line that says, “You’re a habit I can’t seem to break, I’m addicted to the way you say I love you too.” and I can always put myself back in that place when we play it.
For those that are new to The Reeves Brothers, will you talk a bit about your background and how you became musicians? I know your Dad was a musician, did that draw you to it? Or did you come around to it despite that fact?
We basically grew up on stage. Our dad was a singer in Los Angeles, from 1965 until the late 80’s. By the time we were born he had settled down and was playing a Honky-Tonk called “The StageStop” in the little town of Pahrump, NV, right outside of Las Vegas. Jan Jensen owned the place, and we were always running around the club. We lived behind there for 6 months, when our dad first started working there. We would get out of school, come home, and then head into the bar to hang with the patrons. George Buggs, Tommy Thompson, Tex Shockley, and John Lamb were always there drinking and hanging, and at 5 and 10 years old they became our pals. They loved us! Every night our dad would get us up onstage with him, and we’d do our couple songs a piece. As we got older, we just kept performing and it turned into a career. There wasn’t ever really a decision to do it, it was just what naturally happened. Our dad is our hero... He was the best at what he did, and we wanted to be just like him! We’re still trying…
Describe your sound to someone in 3 words
Real Country Music
How has the pandemic and the state of music affected this record and its release?
It has affected us pretty deeply, but we’ve made it through the rough part, hopefully! Financially, you think you’ve got 6 months of work lined up, and a large portion of that money going to the work of releasing an album. After COVID hit, and all our gigs got cancelled, we weren’t able to put all of our finances into this one thing, not knowing when we’d be able to perform and tour again. Also, you release a record and then you tour it... which no one is able to do right now. It is a really sad situation. There’s so many people releasing great music right now, and it’s a shame all of us musicians are kinda locked up and can’t get out to share it!
How does this album differ from your last one?
The last album we recorded, we produced ourselves. That was in part to us having a really rough time during the recording of “Home Sweet Honky-Tonk.” We didn’t like the sound we had gotten on our first record, and we were fed up with having a producer that didn’t get what we were trying to do. So we did it ourselves. This new album was produced by Kevin Skrla at Wolfe Island Recording Co. and it’s the first album that we’ve really been proud of... and I think it shows! We spent a month and a half, day and night, on the island. It was the first record we’ve done that we poured our hearts and souls into. Nine originals and three covers! “The Last Honky-Tonk” is the first album we’ve done where we loaded it up with our originals! We’re ecstatic about the whole project! Kevin Skrla knocked it out of the park on producing and mixing it, and knew exactly the sound, feel, and vibe we were going for!
Were there any songs that you really wanted to make the record, but didn’t? What were they?
The studio is probably my favorite place to write songs and I feel like I’m at peace there. It’s on a farm in Dayton, TX and probably one of the most relaxing places I’ve ever been. Half the album was written there while we were recording it. I think once we were there it was easier to write songs that fit into the same vibe as the others because that’s all we were listening to and playing. There were several songs that we recorded at the studio, but they just didn’t feel right for the album after we recorded them. We recorded a song “Barroom Queen” several times and another song we wrote, “Brothers Of The Road.” Hopefully, one day they’ll find their place and we can release them on another album.
I read that you both used to have your own solo careers, what led to the decision to join together and be a family band?
Our manager, at the time, was a man named Steven Martinez. He managed each of us individually, and was taking a percentage from each of us. After a trip to Laughlin, NV, playing a 7 night run, he mentioned us starting The Reeves Brothers. We both were firmly against the idea! After a visit to the Grand Canyon, our drummer Nate Wong saying we’d be crazy not to do it, and Steven saying he’d only take a small percentage fee from one person instead of both of us, we were in! At that time we both had very different views on how to run a band. We eventually came together and now it’s a blast! We’ve gotten more accomplished together, than we ever would have separated!
What are the biggest positives and negatives to being in a band as brothers?
I think the positives of working together as brothers are being able to be honest with each other. There’s not many punches pulled. If one of us don’t like something, we tell each other. If someone in the band has a problem with something, they can come to one of us and we’ll talk to each other about it and it keeps the heat off of everyone else. If need be, we’ll just go fisticuffs in a parking lot at Fiddlers Inn, in Nashville. The latter part of that answer could probably count as the negative.
Biggest musical influences?
One publication recently mentioned our signature “Merle Haggard meets Alabama sound.” That really sums up a large majority of influences. Merle Haggard is the end all be all in this group, and Alabama is a huge inspiration to our sound! Throw in Mickey Gilley and the Urban Cowboy movement and you’ve got the stuff we love.
Who’s on your playlist right now?
Zephaniah O’Hora, Merle Haggard, Mike and The Moonpies, Summer Dean, Gene Watson, Timbo, Jesse Daniel, Dolly Parton, Gary P. Nunn, Sammi Smith, Vincent Neil Emerson, Tammy Wynette, Michael Martin Murphy, Marty Stuart, etc...
Look out for our review of The Reeves Brothers album, coming soon.
You can find out more about The Reeves Brothers here:
