Music
Email
Print
Everybodyfields, all right!
The Everybodyfields
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: December 4, 2008
Updated: 12/03/2008 04:20 pm
"It was a clever enough name, and it got more so when I heard the songs, which were about as emotionally powerful a group of songs as I had heard in quite some time," Ramseur said. "Better still, they were really good songs, and the band itself…."
He stopped, thought for a minute, and then said, "It was a chunky peanut-butter-and-peach-jelly sandwich thing. It was obvious from the second that I laid eyes on them that there was something unusual but savory about that combination. Then when they started to perform, it was one of ‘those' moments, when you knew you were in the presence of something special."
The band then was singer, songwriter and bassist/guitarist Sam Quinn, described by Ramseur as "sort of quirky looking, straight-laced, but amazingly talented"; and singer, bassist/guitarist Jill Andrews, described by Ramseur as "naturally pretty and charismatic, with a voice that sucked you in."
The songs were great -- Quinn was a previous winner at the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest -- and the harmony vocals of Quinn and Andrews sent chills down the spine. Ramseur talked business with the band, and The Everybodyfields signed with Ramseur Records and released Nothing Is OK, an intricate, darkly enchanting album, that, in contrast to the band's previous two homemade acoustic albums, offered a fuller sound and additional musicians.
The band, augmented by a drummer and a pedal-steel guitarist, steadily toured as an opening act for The Avetts just as that band started to move from being a regional phenomenon to a national phenomenon. Nothing Is OK began to sell in larger and larger quantities. The band's own shows started selling out. Its audience grew, and the national buzz around the band got louder and louder and louder.
"The album is immediate and intense," Ramseur said, by way of explanation. "It's a different kind of animal. The sadness of the songs seems personal, and people connect with that. It's the sort of album for people that like to listen to music alone in the dark -- but I mean that in a good way."
Sam Quinn explained his band's success this way: "You can't listen to Wings (Paul McCartney's post-Beatles band) all the time. So when you get tired of listening to Wings, you can listen to us."
Ah, the "quirky" one.
"The naturally pretty one," Jill Andrews, was unavailable for comment. "Jill is about to get married and have a family, kind of not in that order," Quinn said. "Gotta get those ducks in a row, you know."
The sharp reader might well have picked up a wisp of, well, not exactly disgust or dismay -- but certainly not joy -- at Quinn's comment.
"There's a reason that Dolph said it was personal," Quinn said, sounding somewhere between glib and glum. "It was personal. Any more personal and it would have made the news."
Nothing was OK between Quinn and Andrews during the making of the album. The duo had once been a romantic item, then, in true Fleetwood Mac style, split, with a certain amount of acrimony. Nothing Is OK is about said breakup.
Quinn met Andrews while she was singing in a band that he had worked in, but under a different name. "We shared knowledge of a lot of the same songs, so we just started singing together, and realized that it was really natural and special, and things went from there," he said. "We both loved The Jayhawks and Drivin' ‘N Cryin' – those band were way above the curve of the twangy-Americana-whatever thing."
Then the relationship went bad. Songs were written. Offense was taken. Attitudes were adopted.
All the while, the band was getting more and more popular and was scheduled to record Nothing Is OK -- a process that Quinn described as spending "a season in hell."
"We were making an album while simultaneously trying to destroy everything that we had ever meant to each other. It was tense, a series of potholes to unsavory experiences. We each started smoking cigarettes again, then we had to stop, which really improved everybody's mood."
Quinn fell silent. "The band almost tanked. But then we went on this long nationwide tour, and realized that something is going to happen. It was all a bit confusing. Still is."
The band has recently finished recording a second album for Ramseur Records titled When I Wake, Be Real. "There are a couple of overdubs to do, then we have to mix, then its off to let the wheels of the big machine work its magic," Quinn said. "It essentially picks up where the last album left off. There are some sad songs on it, but we also have a full-time band now, so that makes things also a bit livelier. The new tunes are great, and I am finally using a guitar that allows me to have the power to state my life the way that I want it."
Quinn said that there are no concrete plans for touring the album, as there are "things" to consider. In the meantime, he said that he and the rest of "the boys" in the band have started a side project -- as yet to be named.
"It's just something for us to do," he said, trying to sound casual, but failing. "It's a way to spend the winter. It's like women making quilts."
If you go
The Everybodyfields will perform at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Studio B at 520 E. Elm St, Greensboro. Albina Savoy will open. Tickets are $12, $15 at the door.
Visit www.studiob-gso.com/studio.html
or call 336-373-0811.
Email
Print
