Joe Henry once called The Last Waltz “the perfect fall album.” Big Johns, the November release from rustic Chapel Hill outfit Jennyanykind, also somehow manages to sound and feel like autumn, evoking that strange combination of cool, bracing air and impending death courtesy of songs ranging from the rollicking “So Supernatural” to the stark, elegiac “Bury My Body”. (And just to connect all the dots, the fiddle-coaxed opener “The Heat, The Hot, And The Hard Luck Swill” does a nice job of capturing The Band’s revival-tent rock ‘n’ soul.)
All this seasonal and weather talk seems apropos after a conversation with Jennyanykind’s Michael Holland during which he twice mentions how he feels people “need to acclimate” themselves to the band’s music. Holland, along with twin brother Mark, started the band in the early ’90s, favoring more of a self-described “self-indulgent” sound in those days and earning transcontinental comparisons such as “an American version of English space pop.”
With the breakthrough Revelator, released on Elektra in 1996, Jennyanykind began the journey from psychedelic to organic, and Big Johns represents a satisfying end to those travels. “The music we were listening to in the beginning was a lot different than the music we’re listening to now,” Holland says. “But, hell, we were a lot different.”
One of the dominant sounds is now generated by an old piano (the titular Big Johns) that rolls along like a pot of water on medium boil. “It’s out of tune; it needs a little work,” Holland says of the upright he found in the For Sale section of a local paper and that graces the cover of the new album. “I can’t imagine what that thing would sound like if it were tuned and ready. It might not even sound as good, I don’t know. The B note was slightly flat — not flat enough to be annoying, but just flat enough to really create this great disharmony between the other strings. It has a lot of character.”
Holland wrote 13 of the record’s 14 songs and sings lead in addition to playing Big Johns, but it’s his unique guitar sound that controls the moods. “I’m going after something that can sound electric and acoustic at the same time — but then also sound spatial, almost like I’m sending a signal out into space,” Holland says. “I use a Sears socket wrench, and it gets a heavy sound and I try to drive it through a warm amp. I play this ’72 custom Telecaster, and that has a lot to do with it. It’s the old Keith Richards special.”
The Holland brothers have a textbook symbiotic-twins relationship, at least musically speaking: Michael is the “melody guy,” while drummer Mark nails down the rhythm. “I learned a lot about rhythm from Mark, and I definitely feel like rhythm is important to a song,” Holland says. “It’s something you can get into so easily. You have to please your body as well as your mind.”
Mission accomplished, as Big Johns can make you ruminate (the Dylanesque “Prayer In The Shitter”) and vibrate (“Didn’t You Notice”). “It’s bittersweet, but it’s a positive record — a lot more positive than our other records, and that makes me happy,” Holland summarizes with a chuckle. “I can listen to our own records now, at least once in a while.”
