Cut from some ramshackle cloth from yesteryear’s closet, Truth & Salvage Co. has carved out its own modern niche the old fashioned way—they write really kick ass songs. And truth be told, the Los Angeles band has four strong songwriters in a group dynamic that is as much a throwback to The Band as it is a modern version of alternative country played through a rock ‘n’ harmonize template. To put an exclamation point on the heart-on-the-sleeve matter, along with a double shot of barrelhouse good times, T&S Co. delivers a vigorous live set, which is what initially caught this writer’s attention as the sextet opened up for another passionate band of troubadours, the Avett Brothers, in a show that featured ample soul and a hell of lot of good tunes with strong harmonies.
Truth & Salvage Co. consists of vocalist/guitarist Scott Kinnebrew, vocalist/guitarist Tim Jones, vocalist/drummer Bill “Smitty” Smith, vocalist/keyboardist Walker Young, bassist Joe Edel and keyboardist Adam Grace. They embark on the second leg of their U.S. tour in early September with a series of slots not only headlining, but supporting the Black Crowes, Gov’t Mule, The Avett Brothers, and Jackie Greene. Indeed, Crowes’ frontman Chris Robinson produced the band’s self-titled debut album, which is an excellent statement of where the band is at today, and what its glance back at yesterday has done to its rather unique four-part songcraftsmanship.
Jambands.com sat down with Kinnebrew for a look at that creative process, while the singer/guitarist also stands astride the soap box to discuss his craft and scene, observations on his band mates and their formidable abilities, the contributions of other artists, including Katy Perry, and the long road ahead through mysterious lands of what is to come for a band which includes members from the south and Midwest sections of an American nation, which bred such a colorful band.
RR: The band has an interesting back story. How did the group form, and what did you find to be the thread that pulled through all of your varied backgrounds?
SK: Well a few of us in the band, Smitty and Joe and Walker and I had been playing for a good long time together in a band called Scrappy Hamilton. We lived in Asheville, North Carolina and toured the East Coast a bunch. We had a blast, but after burning through two vans and various band members, we started wondering if something needed to change. We decided on a change of scenery and chose Los Angeles. Walker’s brother worked in the entertainment industry and we knew we could get some work there. So we moved into this notorious party pad on Gower St in Beachwood Canyon and promptly got our minds blown by the beast that is Los Angeles.
In a parallel universe in Indianapolis, our future friend Tim Jones and his crew had a band called Old Pike. They put out a record on Epic Records and toured and toured and ultimately crashed and burned much like ourselves down the way in Asheville. Timmy had made connections in Los Angeles while recording out there and beat tracks for the West Coast. The rest of Old Pike went on to do good things for themselves, one now works for Epic Records, one went on to play lead guitar in My Morning Jacket, and one is the greatest artist in Chicago.
And in yet another world there was Adam Grace who on top of studying piano since childhood mastered the art of magic and made a very fine name for himself. He toured the Southeast a bunch with a rock band and later moved to LA because his magic career was taking off. I like to call both Adam and Timmy the glue that binds.
A couple of things about the music scene in LA is most musicians don’t get paid for playing, at least not what I have seen. And because they don’t get paid they need to seek work and be local and not ever tour. We moved into a great community that supported our thing and we got gigs, but despite bringing a crowd we never got paid, so we found a little dive called Cranes and started a weekly night of free music we called The Beachwood Rockers Society. We would invite friends to come play, and they would invite friends and it turned into a really cool organic scene. It started turning into us backing up all sorts of people, and what was once a focused band with a mission turned into a loose network of a bunch of songwriters and players having a good time.
Down the road (this is all in Hollywood), at the Hotel Cafe, Tim Jones had a similar thing going on. He would book Sundays filling the night with good and true music. He stumbled upon our gig at Cranes and liked the heaving mass of Hollywood freaks sweating it out with the band playing and liked what he saw, and we became fast friends. Pretty soon after we were invited to come play with a friend in Vegas, we being Scrappy, but I had a nutty job that I couldn’t get out of, so Walker invited Timmy to come sing some songs. I always wish I could have been there really but then if I were there then this new beautiful band might have never happened. They had a blast, came back inspired. They had written this hysterical song called “Them Jeans”: Its them jeans baby, red, white and blue baby, its them jeans baby that make you want to comb your hair.
We started a new band. Decided to call ourselves the Denim Family Band. It had a revolving cast of characters including Adam Grace, and we loved playing with Adam so much we made him quit magic (not really). But we had such a good time, and all the songs were silly, and we rarely rehearsed but we would just crack ourselves up. We realized this was something that we had lost through the battering pursuit of music. We realized there was chemistry, we realized it was special and we decided to start delving deeper into our individual song catalogs to sing the best of the best. We started practicing all the time, worked on harmonies all the time. Still keeping it fun we got serious about it. The thread that binds us is love and humor. We are really good friends. We’ve lived long enough to understand the benefits of humility. And we’ve been at it long enough to know when we have something good. Through this we realized that the denim name didn’t quite suit us anymore and we decided on Truth & Salvage Company.
RR: The band is comprised of four excellent songwriters, which definitely is evident on the debut album and on the stage. How does the band find that one common element amongst each other to form such a unified voice song after song? What musical influences do all of you share? Any that are vastly different?
SK: I appreciate you saying that. We have been at the songwriting thing for most of our lives. But we also have been playing in bands for a long time, and we love the thickness in sound that comes with a band. You can’t do that by yourself. Alone we are good, together we are great. Love and humility, it’s the only way I’ve found it to work. And I’ve got to work at it all the time. On top of that, four of us are singing almost throughout every song so the song never gets too timbre-y with one voice, it’s filled out with harmony, multiple souls breathing in unison. We like all sorts of music, and we have influenced each others tastes. A couple of these boys were raised on a lot of country. And at one time, where it pretty much annoyed me, now I find myself craving it. A couple of us were dirty road traveling hippies following The Dead and going to Rainbow Gatherings so that influence has left its mark. All in all I’d say we are musical sponges and appreciate anything that bleeds soul.
RR: How did you get Chris Robinson to produce your debut album?
SK: We had a connection to Pete Angelus, who managed The Black Crowes since the time they were Mr. Crowes Garden. He heard of what we were doing and requested a showcase. We were thrilled obviously, one of the biggest gigs ever really, and he loved it.
Pete agreed to manage us. He felt that Chris would dig it, and invited him to come see us play. And he dug it indeed. He had just recently started his own imprint label, Silver Arrow Records, and was looking for a band to produce. It was a truly perfect scenario.
RR: Let’s discuss the songwriting process for the album.
SK: This album is mostly songs that we brought to the table, if not all the way written, mostly written, and needed some help with arranging, or needed a bridge. For this album, there were some songs that we had up our sleeves for a little while. They were all written during the time that we moved to Los Angeles, so within the last three or four years.
Recently, we’ve had a lot of songs where we started soundchecking an idea. We do have great moments where a song is completely written as a band, three or four of them. Those aren’t on the album, but we definitely foresee them on the next record, and we do play them in the live show. We have four guys that have spent the better half of our lives writing songs. From my individual experiences, if it weren’t for the love of a song, I don’t think I would have gotten where I am today with music. I don’t think I would have ever really found beauty in a guitar, beauty in making music with other people, if I didn’t understand the power of a song. Since I can remember, from the 8th grade, (laughs) I remember writing a song about the Vietnam War after seeing Platoon, and from there, the songwriting process has grown, and my ability to communicate musically with people, and understanding the subtle nuances of playing music with people has all proliferated itself along with my love of writing songs.
I really feel that everyone, in that way, I can speak for all the songwriters in the band. Timmy [Jones] has some songs on this record that we share parts with like “Old Piano,” for instance. He was writing it at his house and Katy Perry, the famous Katy Perry was at his house at the time, and he was writing “Old Piano,” and it goes “she’s been playin’ me like an old piano, all the notes out of key,” and he didn’t know what was going to be the next line, and Katy Perry walked through and said, “somehow singing the right words over the right melody.” It’s little things like that that are undeniable that’s where the song would go, and that’s where we give people credit for that. Timmy has also been the most open to co-write with people.
For me, “Pure Mountain Angel,” for instance, Walker [Young] who started writing it the first year we were in Los Angeles, had this really beautiful, strong, and the message was so huge, and we felt like we could have the horizon climax, and he wanted a bridge for it. I started listening to it, and I remembered a song I had written many years back. My wife now, but my girlfriend at the time, was about to break up with me, and my previous band, Scrappy Hamilton was going to shit, and I wrote the song from my heart. That was the bridge of the song that I had written, and I said, “Hey, Walker, let’s do this bridge for that,” and it turned out to be a perfect compliment to each other.
We’re really open to having people change our songs. We are also very open to having a coach or producer come in, and really have an idea for what he heard. I think that really has a lot to do with nailing in the power of a song. Chris Robinson had a lot of great ideas. He shortened “Old Piano,” for instance, by two minutes to make it radio friendly, and what he did was perfect. He took out a superfluous little measure in “See Her” to make the entrance to the song pop right out of the page, or out of the speakers, sonically.
I think all of that stuff is really pretty crucial to the band, and where we are at now. I think this goes back to “alone, we’re good; together, we’re great.” I can write something, and I like it, and I can sing it all day long and it’ll be cool, but what I hear I’ll never be able to reproduce by myself. What I hear might be, maybe even our ear, could then be what really needs to be digested by a lot of people—“why don’t you rein in this really artistic moment of your song and make it more simple and more pop-y, to really, honestly, make a hit out of it.”
I don’t want to sound like we are trying to carve out hits all the time, but I think that throughout all this time, I used to write songs that never even had a repeating chorus. It would have a repeating melody, but not the same words. Bit by bit, you hone in to write the best songs, and I think, luckily, we all met at a time when we were all on the same page with that, professionally speaking, and, also, open-hearted to collaboration to a different level that we’ve ever been on.
RR: Different levels make me think of different live ideas. How does the band determine their setlists for each gig?
SK: Well, we play all the songs on the record. That’s what we have, and that’s what we’ll always do for the next little while until the next record comes out. When we were touring with the Crowes or touring with the Avett Brothers, or any supporting capacity, most of the time our set is 45 minutes. We pretty much played the record, and I will sometimes opt to play something else in exchange for a more moodier song. I’ll take out “Rise Up,” for example, and throw in a minor song that I have. But for this whole tour, pretty much 60 minutes or 90 minutes is the slot time, and we have to bring all sorts of songs to the table and the set changes all the time. When we were with the Crowes, we had a nice formulaic approach to a set. I think a lot of us do like the experimentation and the looseness of having different songs run into each other. We also want to be able to cater to the people that want to record our shows, to have recordings of our shows, and entice them to come see us, so we like to switch it up, we want to rock out and experiment with how the set runs. We’re always trying to figure out what is the best lineup of songs.
RR: Does it help that each member appears to be able to handle frontman status?
SK: You saw us play. I don’t feel like the frontman. Maybe that particular set. I don’t know. We played 45 minutes and we played mostly the whole album. I hope that we try to stay, or appear like an egalitarian group. People do that [focus on the frontman]. That’s a natural tendency, but we’re trying to work it out more. Walker is a powerhouse songwriter, and he has a really good stage presence, as well, and a lot of times he is on piano duty. This tour, he does piano, but Adam [Grace] has been playing the keyboard parts, and [Walker] has been playing accordion, and at that point, he’ll stand up, and he’ll be more present on stage. We have a lot of people sitting down so we’re trying to make the songwriting presence not focused on the guy waving his hands around the most, which is what I tend to do. Maybe it’s just me waving around and saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” (laughter) It’s kind of been my thing to make it a show.
RR: Your live shows are quite dynamic, and have that “this is the last show we are ever going to play” aspect to them.
SK: We really like to bring it that’s for sure. One thing that is a plain fact is that if you agree to drive in a van all day, day after day, leaving behind your wife and community in exchange for ever-changing backdrops of venues and truck stops you best better enjoy yourself during the mere hours you get to do what you came to do. That being said, there still are some shows better than others, that’s just how it goes. And it is an ongoing effort to stay fresh out here, between routing to gigs and radio shows and whatnot the schedule can be grueling. Luckily, for the most part, all of us get such a charge from the folks that come to see us that we don’t need much sleep. Switching lead vocals is crucial. First off it keeps things interesting. Secondly, it takes the pressure off just a little to focus on other aspects of the song. We are mostly always singing so we exert a lot of energy regardless.
RR: Where do you see the band going from here? I can’t think of any other band at the moment that has such a strong command of songwriting from four different sources, and delivers on stage. Do you think that the songcraft abilities push Truth & Salvage Co. into areas that other bands don’t quite have?
SK: I honestly see great things for us. I’ve always been an optimist, and I can speak for everyone in the band that we live like the Lost Boys of Never Never Land and really have no back up plan for anything else, so it’s got to work. We’ve got some really good songs, songs that are accessible to a lot of different types of folks. For people who like rock, we can rock their pants off. For those who like country, we have the twang and a bursting sense of pride for our nation. You can couple dance or hippie dance to our music—your choice. As far as other bands go, I believe they have every potential in the world; I feel no competition. The more people singing the better. Maybe we’ll reach some cosmic threshold the day that three billion people happen to be singing simultaneously, like suddenly there is world peace.
RR: The Avett Brothers share your passionate embrace of the moment on the stage. Any favorite moments while touring with them?
SK: I love love love the Avett Brothers. I have had the opportunity to track them from the most humble beginnings. We met them at a small college festival in Brevard, North Carolina like in 2002 or something. The kids must have been playing video games or something because the only folks there were in the band or ran the sound. We had a special exchange that day, loved what the other was doing. And then like wild fire they dominated North Carolina, then South Carolina and Virginia, by then they were huge! It makes me proud watching their progress, their success is my success.
This last tour with them was a mile burner. Between the drive, the set up and the show there was little idle time. We were able to catch up, shoot the breeze for a few minutes each day, show each other mutual admiration. The last night of the tour, we were singing our set closer “Pure Mountain Angel” and all of a sudden the crowd erupted and I was like, “Damn, they love this,” and looked over to see the Avetts practically tackling Walker and chiming in on our final raucous chorus. We were all smiles. After the show we had a beer and said our goodbyes. I would have driven twice the distance. Looking forward to playing with them and Gov’t Mule at Red Rocks in September. Special times!
