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BIO
Tumbledown Finds the Real America In An Empty
Bottle
Webster's defines “tumbledown” as “dilapidated,
ramshackle.” For Tumbledown singer/guitarist Mike
Herrera, the term evokes “something from a bygone
era that's been long forgotten,” like the
“tumbledown shacks” he read about in the biography
Woody Guthrie: A Life. That image of
America's past spoke so loudly to Herrera that it
gave his band a name. The music of Tumbledown
takes that sepia-tinged image of Americana and
sends it hurtling into the present, with the help
of some punk-inflected riffs and pure rock & roll
attitude. The punky side of the band's musical
personality comes naturally to Herrera, who first
became known in the '90s as the frontman for
renowned rockers MxPx, but the pure, honest twang
of country music has been echoing in the
Tumbledown leader's ears ever since he was a young
boy singing along while Willie Nelson's “On the
Road Again” came stomping out of his family's car
stereo.
In the
late '90s, after he'd already spent years on the
road himself, rocking out all over the globe with
MxPx, Herrera started tapping into that long-held
love of American roots music, and out came songs
that had more to do with down-home, old-timey
sensibilities than the larger-than-life rock
world. But it wasn't until 2007 that he finally
formed Tumbledown, to realize his vision of an
Americana band with some raw-boned, rock & roll
bite. The next year, Tumbledown released their
first EP, Atlantic City, followed by a
self-titled album in 2009 (End Sounds) and a live
CD entitled Live In Tulsa, and they've
never looked back since.
These
days, Herrera is more dedicated to the roots-rockin'
sound of Tumbledown than ever, and Empty Bottle,
the band's second studio album, reaffirms that
musical mission in no uncertain terms. Alongside
Jack Parker on guitar and brothers Marshall and
Harley Trotland on standup bass and drums,
respectively, Herrera sings about themes that have
been a part of country and roots music from the
beginning – drinking, fighting, gambling, ladies
of the night and brushes with the law, all the
things that add up to an uncompromising, real-deal
look at American life as lived by those who aren’t
afraid to push it to the limit and beyond.
Herrera
himself readily admits to being besotted by the
romance of recklessness and rough-and-tumble
living, the kind you’ll find at the heart of
Empty Bottle. In fact, the album’s title track
itself was inspired by the intimate relationship
the band maintains with alcohol, even when they’re
in the studio. “We average about one 750 ml bottle
of vodka or whiskey at each session,” admits
Herrera, “including regular practice. So, ‘Empty
Bottle’ seemed to work as the title on many
levels.” The songs were written by Herrera at tour
stops all over the world, but the tracks were all
laid down at home, in his own Bremerton, WA
studio, Monkey Trench.
The
characters in Herrera’s songs drink to forget;
they ask for a reason to stay in town without
really expecting to get one; they look at the
madness around them and wonder whether it’s them
or the rest of the world that’s gone crazy. But
for as much as Empty Bottle may paint a
stark picture of life for the desperate, the
driven, and the downtrodden, it ultimately points
towards the possibility of an escape from those
vicious circles of sadness and self-destruction, a
way to deal with all the hard knocks. The most
obvious and immediate way, of course, is simply to
let the songs unfold, inhabit your bloodstream,
and bring you around to the Tumbledown
perspective.
From
the full-frontal cowpunk attack of the opening
cut, “Places In This Town,” where the narrator
braves harm to body and soul but forges ahead
regardless, to closing track “Not Hung Over,” a
classic morning-after-madness tale of a
dizzy-headed drinking man’s denial, Empty
Bottle offers an image of Americana that’s as
true, tragic, tumultuous, and tantalizing as any
you’ll get from some acoustic guitar-strumming
folkie. You can call it alt-country if you want
to, or even outlaw country, but for all the
six-string twang and hell-bent two-steps that
tumble out of these tunes, you can’t discount the
pure rock & roll power Tumbledown brings to the
table either.
So
where’s it all headed? Well, in musing on the road
that lies ahead of Tumbledown, Herrera says “I
plan on releasing a lot more material much more
often from now on.” In the meantime, there’s an
Empty Bottle to open up night after night, for
a different crowd each time. The old philosophical
question about half-full vs. half-empty may not
apply, but listening to these songs, it’s obvious
that Mike Herrera and Tumbledown draw their energy
from a source that says “Empty is okay for what’s
inside the bottle – it’s what’s outside
that matters.” And that’s exactly where Tumbledown
is coming from.
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