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Madison’s deep Americana well just gushed more oil. Cutover Country, the first album from Driveway Thriftdwellers, is Southern rock with Northern heart. The record, which the band will debut at the Frequency on Aug. 20, could just as easily be called Flyover Country. But these songs are rooted in the dirt from four long seasons spent on county roads.
Jon Knudson, a Milwaukee-based songwriter who founded the band with his brother Ryan in 2012, writes tunes that are like letters home from a Midwestern boy turned loose to a shuffle beat of twangy guitars and pedal steel.
“Northern Accent” is the tale of a honky-tonk encounter in a California roadhouse. Sounds like Bakersfield when you listen to the music. Sounds like Sconnie love when boy meets girl at the bar and, lo and behold, she has a Northern accent. The Knudson brothers grew up in northern Wisconsin.
The band’s name is one of the most confounding you’ll see in local listings, so I had to ask where it came from. Jon says it came to him in a dream about one of those old ladies who has a summer-long yard sale every year.
“Can I help you driveway thriftdwellers find something?” the dream-lady asked.
The Thriftdwellers’ music sounds more like a vintage yard sale that Jon’s musical hero Merle Haggard might have thrown. The album’s retro sounds were aided and abetted by resources — human and otherwise — at Madison’s Dojo Studios, where the album was recorded and mixed by Brian Knapp.
Knapp, one of Madison’s best country singers as demonstrated by work in his own band, Ghost Town Council, oversaw the production. He also provided gear that itself could have been flown in from Bakersfield circa 1970: vintage tube amps, instruments and old recording devices.
Of course, all the cool toys in the world won’t make a recording if you don’t have the talent to put them to use. And the current Thriftdwellers’ lineup has chops. In addition to rhythm guitar and vocals by Jon (who has also provided lead guitar and backing vocals for Madison’s Whitney Mann), Ryan provides high-flying pedal steel.
Lead guitarist Kyle Rightley knows how to play the fat, farty truck-driver notes but can also pretty up a song countrypolitan-style. Rightley’s other projects include the Civil Engineers and Five Points Jazz Collective. Former Locksley bassist Aaron Collins also sings harmony. Milwaukee-based drummer Jon Storey rounds it out.
“My heroes have always been cowboys,” says Jon. Cutover Country, is a worthy tribute to those heroes.
