The Appalachian melting pot that is Blackberry Smoke is a hard act to pin down.
With the long, unruly hair and ’70s stone-washed aesthetic of Almost Famous extras, the band has been hailed as the future of Southern rock, though it’s an accolade the five members don’t know quite what to do with. Frontman Charlie Starr is at his Georgia home, recharging before his next shows in North Carolina in a couple of days’ time, and he speaks about the band’s evolution of style, as well as the upcoming visit for Bluesfest.
“The band just sounds the way that it does purely by happenstance,” says Starr. “The first time we plugged in together we knew the kind of music we were going to make, because that’s just the kind of guys we are. Obviously our love of music goes deeper than Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers – who we love dearly – but we never really decided we’re going to fly this flag. We’re just a rock’n’roll band from Georgia.”
As for being celebrated as the custodians of Southern music, Starr is as indifferent to the title as he is to those who call Blackberry Smoke ‘revivalists’. For him, the band’s ethos is to live and let live. It’s this focus on the music that’s propelled the transition from Blackberry Smoke’s grittier early work to the sound of their 2015 album, Holding All The Roses.
“If the fans that appreciate our music, if they get something from that, then great, we are that band, but we’re not revivalists or a throwback band or anything like that – we’re just five guys playing our music. For instance, we wouldn’t make a very good punk band.”
Speaking of the band’s work, Holding All The Roses is a uniquely formed album that came out last year. Blackberry Smoke’s recording style has historically been an attempt to capture the band’s live aesthetic. From the biting Southern bar feel of their earliest studio album, Bad Luck Ain’t No Crime, to breakthrough 2012 record The Whippoorwill, Starr says Holding All The Roses was meant to be their version of Aerosmith’s Rocks – an album made for headphone listening – and producer Brendan O’Brien was brought on to move Blackberry Smoke in this new direction.
“In speaking with Brendan O’Brien, when we started to record, he and I agreed that The Whippoorwill, our previous album, was just us playing live and it was underproduced. We love it of course, but we’d just made that record and we don’t like to repeat ourselves,” Starr says. “We always record together, playing ‘live’, if you will, while recording. But you can try in vain for years trying to capture real, live energy in the studio. It’s nigh impossible, you know? I think we started to understand it’s two completely different things.”
Blackberry Smoke cut their teeth touring, and Starr believes an integral part of their 16-year longevity has been the ability to reinforce their fan base around the world through playing live and never staying in the same place for too long.
“Play in front of as many people as possible,” Starr advises. “Unless you have a huge radio hit in your pocket, I would say playing every club from West Coast to East Coast is the plan. When we started Blackberry Smoke, we bought a van and a trailer and loaded up our ramshackle gear pretty much constantly. That’ll drive you kind of crazy when you’re not making much money and everybody wants to go home. But then you find your rhythm and get into it. [But] keeping a van together is quite a challenge.”
The success of Blackberry Smoke’s last two albums has opened up channels for the band to tour around the world, reaching the European circuit and now Australia. When asked about why Blackberry Smoke – as well as Southern rock and Americana more generally – are received so favourably in Australia, Starr says it’s to do with the instinctual reach these genres have with the middle class.
“I think that kind of music resonates with so many people because it’s so honest. It comes from the blues, jazz and hillbilly country music; those kinds of music resonate. It hits people where they live. It’s nostalgic, not only musically but it reminds people of the good times and bad times and home.”
Speaking of nostalgia, Starr gets to talking about his earliest experiences with music. Today he sees the internet as a changing force in his society’s appreciation for the art; he says even his own children’s relationship to music is too ephemeral. Quoting the old adage of songwriting, there’s no tension and release anymore.
“We all turn into our dads at some point. I was trying to explain to my oldest son that I would spend months searching for some record or cassette that wouldn’t be readily available the way music is today. Once I finally found it after searching record stores, modern pop stores, flea markets, whatever, the wait to get home was thrilling. Instant gratification is the name of the game these days and I think there was something to be said for the anticipation of finding something you’d really yearned for.”
Blackberry Smoke play Bluesfest 2016, runningThursday March 24 – Monday March 28at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, and The Basement on Wednesday March 23.Holding All The Roses is out now through Rounder/Concord.
