A&Entertainment
Country
Melvins
mix country,
punk metal
Story by Christopher Heine
Art by Matt Haney
_he Country Melvins are the anti
Osmonds of family bands.
Their most receptive audience has been
punk-rock hipsters - a social group whose
members typically have a mind-set capable of
giving passive, yet thoughtful consideration to
the romanticism in nihilism.
The band’s audience is appropriately com
plex for a group of two brothers and a couple of
cousins who musically embrace their contradic
tions.
Bob Melvin said his Chicago-based group
played “abrasive” yet “old American music.”
“A mix of old-time country and punk-rock
metal,” he said. “Soft ears don’t like us.”
The Country Melvins will perform their
hybrid set of hard-edged country and bluegrass
tunes at Knickerbocker’s Tavern, 901 O St.,
Friday in a show beginning at 10 p.m. It will be
the band’s second show at the venue.
One thing the group makes perfectly clear is
the rural, yesteryear approach of the band.
The Country Melvins sound as if the notes
and words in their songs have crawled out of the
ashtray of a long-dead pickup truck.
Bob and Bud Melvin have baritone voices
that character actor Billy Bob Thornton would
love to lift for future backwoods Arkansas
scenes.
Humble in manner, yet apparently flamboy
ant and unified in musical attack, they explain
their philosophy in a manner that would excite
any red-blooded Johnny Cash fan.
“We’re kind of dark and gloomy” and “we
all grew up listening to country” were phrases
repeated by all three interviewed band mem
bers.
The Melvin family’s roster is indicative of a
country band.
Bob sings and plays guitar, Bud is a banjo
player, Darla is a fiddler and Jethro handles the
percussion.
Darla Melvin said family togetherness is
important to her band’s music.
“I think a part of what we do comes from the
fact that we are from the same place,” she said.
“The family thing allows us to push the things
we want and be as weird as we want.”
Bob Melvin, lyricist for the quartet, said
family issues are present in their dark music.
“I think there are a lot of things in the songs
COUNTRY
Concert Preview
The Facts
Who: The Country Melvins, with the Dark
Townhouse Band and the Black Dahlias
Where: Knickerbockers, 901 0 St.
When: Friday at 9:30 p.m.
Cost: $3
The Skinny: Chicago’s Country Melvins
headline a rare bill of quirky, pre-1950s -
influenced bands
that I’ve taken from remembering family,” he
said. “You know - how people relate to their
father, Jesus Christ or somebody they’ve
killed.”
Bob Melvin said his band tends to scare peo
ple because of its idiosyncratic melding of old
school country and bluegrass sounds with £
punk-rock tough mentality.
Originality has its price and profits.
The band, while building a solid fan base in
the diverse Chicago scene, hasn’t been as lucky
on the road.
“We tend to wipe out about 80 percent of the
room,” he said. “Although the people who do
stay sometimes end up coming to the stage after
we are done, and they almost embarrass us with
flattery.”
Audiences tend to more readily accept new
bands that sound familiar or even imitate popu
lar groups and genres. Inventive, off-kilter
groups often displease or perplex casual music
listeners.
Darla Melvin said the band’s originality is
partly to blame for its lack of popularity.
The band has been unable to find a music
niche to explain or categorize their band, she
said.
we oenu me rules qune a on, sne saiu.
“The whole problem with the alternative-coun
try genre is that it is so constricting. Our band
doesn’t fit that label and where it’s going.”
Darla Melvin said the bad or awkward
receptions do not discourage the group.
“People love us or they hate us,” she said.
“The reaction is usually extreme, which is good.
At least people don’t think we’re boring.”
Knickerbockers part-owner Sean Tyrrell
said The Country Melvins are the type of band
that not everyone understands right away.
“Yeah, they’re pretty different,” he said.
“But they put on such a great show that most
people won’t forget.”
In contrast to its humble touring success, the
group’s raw, hillbilly-like sound has earned it
packed crowds at two of Chicago’s hip, arty
nightclubs, The Empty Bottle and Lounge Ax.
“We like straightforward, honest people,”
Bob Melvin said. “I think we fit in OK here
because Chicagoans don’t seem real happy, but
they’re honest.”
Bob Melvin said the move to Chicago
changed his group’s sound, because his group
incorporated more electric elements into their
music.
“I think maybe we did it partly to compete
with the louder bands we were playing with,” he
said “We used to be more acoustic and orches
trated.
“Now we’re a little more stripped-down and
abrasive. People will come up and tell us ‘That’s
not easy to listen to.’”
The Country Melvins started playing
together four years ago when the members lived
in Darla’s and Jethro’s hometown of Stoney
Creek, Tenn.
Bob and Bud Melvin originally moved to
Tennessee from western New York. They recog
nized a southern influence on their already root
sy musical tastes that they had developed back
east.
“It was good for me, because it exposed me
to a lot of real country musicians, where music
was a real part of their lives,” Bud Melvin said.
“They weren’t really thinking about careers
and stuff like that, they were just playing for
playing’s sake I guess.”
Judging the comments of the group, it seems
as though the Country Melvins are carrying on
the rugged, western individualism in Chicago
that personifies old country music.
“Growing up, that’s all we really heard on
the radio - Johnny Cash and Hank Williams,”
Bob Melvin said. “So we understand the style
better than others.”
Occasionally, the band gets word that its
throwback vibe has been felt.
“We’ve had 60-year-old couples come up to
us and say: ‘That’s the real country,”’ Bob
Melvin said.
