ABOUT THE BAND
In the great tradition of artists and bands from The Smiths to ...Trail of Dead and Springsteen to Pearl Jam, Nebraska aren’t afraid to nail their colours to the wall. They don’t so much wear their heart on their sleeve as serve it up on a plate, bloody and bleeding, with their soul as a side order. In today’s style-over-substance saturated rock scene, populated by haircuts sulking into skinny jeans, they’re a much-needed clout round the head. But what makes them special is that their belief is infectious - they’re not just saying something worth saying, they’re doing it with songs so big they knock you into next week.
Someone who was similarly bowled over was producer/engineer Adrian Hall (The Clash, Live 8, Ray Davies). After hearing a rough demo he got them in the studio and the result was The Path to the Silent Country, a startlingly beautiful debut album released on Hometown Jam Records in October 2006. Following an exquisite sold-out performance at London’s Water Rats Theatre, the response from the underground press was phenomenal. Artrocker Magazine called it a “stunning debut...surely destined for greatness” whilst new-noise.net hailed “songs to illuminate stadiums”. Time Out went on to tip them as ‘ones to watch’ in a double-page feature.
Central to the band’s make-up is the songwriting partnership of lead singer Michael Hall and guitarist Benjamin Todd. With Hall responsible for the lyrics and Todd working on the music - kind of like an indie-rock version of Elton and Bernie, they joke - the songs only really come together when they meet as a group. Whilst Hall and Todd’s creative output drives Nebraska, it’s bassist Ben Stacks and drummer Jarrod Storm that bring the songs to life whilst also providing some much needed perspective. Todd proffers that it was an observation from Storm provided a key turning point:
“I’d got to the point in my writing when I kept on wanting to add something, to make it bigger. Finally Jarrod told me it was like I was embarrassed of my songs, like I was trying to cover them up. He said, ‘Stop being ashamed that you’re writing pop songs. Don’t be so afraid of what you’re writing; let it just be that.’ That really hit home.”
Hall agrees, going on to explain “the way we’re working now is just so much more concise. The production, the writing, it’s just more to the point.”
Hall and Todd first met back in 2001 when Todd was looking for a bass player. Bonding over not dissimilar small town upbringings in Wales, they agreed that Hall would join Todd for a gig the following week. Unbeknown to Todd, the next day Hall went out and bought a bass and a ‘How to Play Bass’ book. Thankfully, in rehearsals Hall’s real talent quickly shone through. Says Todd, “He turned up at my house and I played him a load of stuff that I’d written - you know, being at school and girls won’t fuck me - and he said he’d written something and started singing. For me it was like the first time I heard Jeff Buckley sing ‘Hallelujah’ or when my mum played me ‘Beautiful Boy’ by Lennon. I was in absolute bits.”
The pair started writing together, initially in Hardcore bands for the first couple of years. They experimented with various set-ups and it was at one such gig back in 2005 that the modern day line-up began to come together.
“They had a keyboard player and a drummer but no bass which I thought was wrong in every possible sense,” laughs Stacks. “As soon as Michael finished he jumped off stage and flew to what he thought was the sanctuary of the toilets. I followed him in and said, ‘You’ve not got a bass player. I’ll do that, thank you’.”
Storm picks up the story: “I met Stacks through his then girlfriend a few years back and we stayed in touch. About a year ago he said the band he was in needed a drummer. I pretty much stepped straight into the rehearsal room and that was it.”
With Stacks and Storm on board, Hall and Todd had finally found the widescreen cinematic sound they were looking for. Nebraska was born.
Explains Todd, “everything I wrote when I was younger was always so ambitious - nothing was ever good enough. With Nebraska I feel privileged to be working with musicians this good - this talented, this professional - that they can flesh out the ideas with me. I write everything on an acoustic guitar but they always have this huge idea behind them, this wall of sound that I know we’re capable of.”
What strikes you first when you meet Nebraska are that these are four very different people - with different outlooks on life, different passions, different sensibilities. What they share, however, is an absolute belief in the music. If there are egos bubbling under the surface, they keep them well hidden. The only thing they’re all precious about is the end result. The song is king.
“No-one else seems to be writing songs about anything anymore. The concept of pop will eat itself has happened; it’s about nothing,” says Hall. With lyrics like ‘when you sew your own mouth shut, your voice will fade away’ (from forthcoming new single ‘The Great Divide’), you could never accuse Nebraska of having nothing to say. Drawing on a whole host of musical, cinematic and literary influences - this thing we call life - they create songs of beauty, songs that ring true. Not to mention songs you can get drunk and dance around like a monkey to.
“We’re a pop band because we can’t resist choruses - it wouldn’t be any fun without them,” continues Hall, “Stacks always says that I write dark stories with an element of hope. With our new material, I still have that element of hope but the more you see of the world, the longer you drag your sorry ass through it, the element of hope gets smaller, which is why I have to rely on these guys to write big fuck-off uplifting musical parts to counteract what I’m singing about. So if you don’t want to listen to me singing about things that are important to me, and important to us as a band, you can just enjoy the songs.”
One such song is the aforementioned 7” single ‘The Great Divide’, soon to be released on indie label Angry Liberal. Produced once again by Adrian Hall, it’s a rousing, polemic-soaked, soul-stirring fistful of rock that will have the disillusioned youth inking the chorus onto their shoulders while they sing it from the rooftops.
Whether the politics are for you or not, all you really have to do is use your ears. Your feet will do the rest.
For management & booking enquiries: Def Hedd
For all other enquiries: nebraska@hometownjam.com
Thanks for visiting Nebraska. x