Q&A: Have Gun, Will Travel

Few, if any, regional releases have been more anticipated this year than Have Gun, Will Travel's newly pressed second CD "Postcards from the Friendly City." The alt-ensemble's debut full-length "Casting Shadows Tall as Giants" finished 2008 as the fourth most played disc on WMNF (88.5) - higher than any other local or unsigned act. The record also appeared on the CMJ chart and NPR featured it. PBS recently chose the album's opening song, "Blessing and a Curse," to appear on every episode of the upcoming 2009 season of "Roadtrip Nation."

If city leaders take a good listen to "Postcards from the Friendly City," they might just want to make the members of Have Gun, Will Travel honorary ambassadors of Bradenton. The record plays like a loving - but never cloying - homage to the community where the core musicians were born, raised, and wrote and recorded their superb new album. Singer-songwriter Matt Burke has penned a dozen catchy, clever songs largely set or inspired by the working-class heart of Bradenton. The tunes are splendidly fleshed out with old-fashioned instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo and gentle percussion. Snippets of conversation and other organic, ambient sounds augment the record's endearing, back-porch feel. In a lengthy interview with Metromix, Burke offers candid, detailed description of his songwriting process, the recording of the album and what it's like to share a manager with a Country Music Hall of Famer.

"Postcards from the Friendly City" has such a warm, spontaneous feel to it. You can hear the space of the room, the way you do on, say, classic, 1950s Sun recordings. Where did you make this album?

We recorded it ourselves at our practice space in downtown Bradenton. Our guitarist Scott Anderson did the recording - he does a lot of sound work on the side. He just set up the equipment in our warehouse rehearsal space and we recorded over the course of five or six months at our leisure. We basically went ahead and recorded the way we wanted to. One, for the purpose to do our own record and have ultimate control but also it afforded us the ability to experiment with how we recorded the songs in regard to mic placement and stuff. We weren't on the clock, which was nice. We got done and then dumped the tracks on [ace Pinellas-based musician/super producer] Steve Connelly, who skillfully mixed and mastered the album. 

Overall, how do you feel this record differs from "Casting Shadows Tall as Giants"?

It's a thematic record but I wouldn't go as far as to say a concept album. There's a hometown theme so we wanted to give it a comfortable, home-y kind of a vibe. That's why we messed around with some ambient noise running through the tracks. As far as coming from a writing perspective, the songs were written similarly to the old album. I'm not a fast songwriter. [Laughs]. I'll spend up to a couple days to a couple months on a song. It's just a matter of when I'm finally feeling comfortable. I always have five or six songs going in various stages. I get frustrated and walk away. It seemed once we had four or five songs for this one I decided I needed to find a common link. What seemed to be going through all the songs was either something specific about Bradenton - or had a generally hometown feel. Once I established that was the theme of the record some of these other songs that were open-ended started to take a new direction. I could figure out where they were going based on the theme of the album.

I love "Sons of Daughters of the Gilded Age," which has this stirring, anthem quality. What inspired that number?

That was one of the first songs written for the album. It's a few different things. The main point to it is society's obsession with celebrity, vanity and all these superficial things. That's the point or message. But I needed it to have a real sing along feel too. I mean there's a chorus of "nah-nah-nah." [Laughs]. I really wanted people to be able to sing along and for people to get behind it - to access it easily and be able to really get into and enjoy themselves while listening to it. There was actually a room full of people singing on the bridge part. We went to Scott's house in Safety Harbor on a Sunday for an afternoon pool party. He set up mics in the living room. There were easily 20 people in the room. We recorded several tracks so it sounds like even more people. The kids are there. We were hoping to give the record a home-y, family feel. Four out of five members of the band have kids. Family is an important thing and I wanted that to come through.

Yeah, for a bunch of guys in your early 30s you sure have quite a lot of children. I loved watching them - all their running around last time I saw you play Skipper's Smokehouse.

[Laughs]. Yeah, I forgot who said it, but we've been called "the most fertile band in Tampa Bay."

Another favorite of mine off the new record is "Salad Days," which might be the most autobiographical songs you have written. There's that terrific, true-to-life line, "I'm the first-born son of a skilled electrician here in Bradenton, F-L-A."

I never really been that personal with songs as far as details about my life or anything like that but this seemed to be going in that direction. But I'm not unleashing any skeletons. [Laughs]. But it is about my life as opposed to a story song or observational song. With it being about Bradenton, I felt like I needed to put a bit of myself in it.

Brett Steele manages Have Gun, Will Travel and also represents, among others, Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin, and the Dex Romweber Duo, which recently cut a single with Jack White. Are you a fan of Louvin and Romweber?

Big time. The Louvin Brothers' harmonies and songwriting was such a huge influence on country music. And Dex, we got to play with them recently at Pastimes Pub in Sarasota. They're great to watch. It's easy to see how Dex, with his first band Flat Duo Jets, influenced bands like The White Stripes. It's awesome to even be indirectly associated with those guys.


Have Gun, Will Travel's album release party is Saturday, November 14 at New World Brewery in Ybor City. The band's next scheduled Tampa Bay date is December 4 at Skipper's Smokehouse. For more information go to myspace.com/hgwt.