The J. Walkers

Take a look at the scrubbed-clean MySpace photos of the pop rock quintet The J. Walkers, and you can tell from their shiny smiles, cherubic faces, and variously styled mop tops that these Tarrant County natives are being groomed with a specific target audience in mind.

Singer-fiddler Klint Stallons, lead singer-guitarist Jordan Burchill, and drummer Jordan O’Leary have played clubs and festivals around North Texas and opened for bands like Green River Ordinance and Forever The Sickest Kids since graduating from Aledo High School three years ago. The loyal fan base they’ve attracted so far has not been ignored by their management.
“Most of our fans are female,” confessed Stallons with a shy chuckle. “If guys come to see us, they’re either friends of ours, or they came with their girlfriends.”

The J. Walkers may have been put on the express train to Heartthrob City, but their charming, jumpy, utterly sincere brand of guitar rock has enough spark and ingenuity to justify their being taken seriously as young musicians. Influenced by groups as various as praise rockers Third Day, introspective dude-poet John Mayer, and punk popsters Yellowcard, the trio formed after Stallons and O’Leary started playing in the youth band at their Aledo church. They soon developed a secular alter ego that began gigging at parties and graduations. Then they met Burchill, who presented them with a batch of non-worship music that he’d written. Although they haven’t broken away completely from the Christian pop scene, the trio decided that they wanted to broaden their audience with less overtly religious songs that had inspirational lyrics about love, hope, and savoring the small joys of life.

The distinguishing factor in their sunny sound is probably Stallons’ fiddle, which he started playing when he was eight. His teachers were renowned bluegrass violin masters Joey and Sherry McKenzie from Mansfied. Klint sharpened his bow on standards like “Cripple Creek” and “Boil Them Cabbage Down.” His taste soon grew a little more exotic when he discovered Yellowcard, the Florida punk quintet whose violinist, Sean Mackin, demonstrated that the fiddle could produce a deranged, authentically subversive sound. Stallons absorbed Mackin’s wild but precise bow strokes even as he studied video lessons about how to play the violin in a live setting with personality.

“People don’t want to see you play correctly,” he said. “They want to see you having fun.” Stallons has spent countless practice hours learning to hop around a stage with a string instrument tucked under his chin. Restraint plays a big role in pop fiddling: “I have to pick my parts carefully,” he said. “The less the audience hears the fiddle, the more they want to hear it.”

Since 2007, The J. Walkers have released two CDs of original material but nothing they’re especially proud of. They’ve had a couple of shots at national exposure, including winning a 2008 Battle of the Bands contest at UNT sponsored by the nonprofit youth music organization known as The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. A former manager got them into a Nashville youth showcase where they received hands-on performance advice from live music producer Tom Jackson, who’s helped Taylor Swift and Matchbox Twenty hone their live shows.

“Tom broke us down and built us up again,” Stallons said. “It was a huge help. He showed us how it wasn’t just about the music, that you also had to show the audience the emotions in the songs.”

The J. Walkers will use that instruction in the busy months ahead. They’re scheduled to play a short set as part of the Music Gorilla showcase at SXSW later this month. A small West Coast tour is planned for this summer, when they’ll release a still-untitled six-song EP produced by Geoff Rockwell (Forever The Sickest Kids). Keyboardist/vocalist Sean Giddings and bassist Daniel Parr have been added to the official J. Walkers lineup to flesh out the band’s sound in the studio and onstage. Meanwhile, the two Jordans –– the lead singer and the drummer –– are both studying music at UNT while Klint continues to sharpen his pop-bluegrass violin skills with music classes.

As for the seemingly limitless possibilities open to The J. Walkers, Stallons is practical. “All of us will be playing music in some shape or form,” he said. When asked to divulge his own pop star fantasy, he quickly added: “If we can play our songs for an arena [full of fans], that’d be the best.” - Fort Worth Weekly

The J. Walkers take rock to school

Fort Worth group takes gamble with fiddler and wins battle of the bands

11:12 AM CST on Saturday, March 1, 2008

By Lucinda Breeding / Features Editor

A small but feisty crowd showed up at the Murchison Performing Arts Center’s Winspear Performance Hall Friday night for the North Texas Battle of the Bands. Their cheers constituted an additional vote for the winning band.

A panel of judges and the audience gave the trophy to The J. Walkers, a Fort Worth rock band that started as a praise and worship outfit.

The four-piece band got its start when founding members Jordan Burchill, Klint Stallons and Jordan O’Leary lent their musical chops to First Baptist Church of Aledo. They picked up Derek Allen later and started racking up songs. The J. Walkers took the people’s choice award at Mayfest in Fort Worth.

The group had easy banter with the crowd, and judges liked their pop-friendly hooks and the pluck to include a fiddle in their lineup.

“At first, that’s all I could play, the fiddle, so that’s what I did,” Stallons said.

Stallons filled in where you might otherwise hear a keyboard, and he said he improvises as singer-songwriter Burchill performs.

“While he sings, I pretty much fill up space,” Stallons said.

Burchill said two of the group’s members are in college, with two attending Fort Worth high schools.

“We have a lot of songs,” Burchill said. “We wanted to do some new stuff, and we had to make sure there was fiddle in it.”

The battle of the bands was presented by the Texas Music Project, a nonprofit organization that supports music education in the state’s public schools, the Denton Record-Chronicle, the University of North Texas and Lone Star Attitude. Music fans, who voted online, and judges whittled the competitors to six finalists.

The J Walkers shared the stage with: No Comment, a three-piece from Plano that included a student from Booker T. Washington School for the Performing and Visual Arts; the Remedy Project, a four-piece praise and worship team that tried U2 on for size; Stalled, a five-piece outfit of Forney High School musicians who came to the battle with some other titles under their belts; and McKinney heavy metal men Dawn Patrol, who performed without their usual lead singer.

The all-guy lineup was skewed mostly to the emo-rock sound that has gone up against hip-hop on top 40 radio formats for the past several years. Tempos are fast, guitars are distorted and melodies are basically sugary, sung in a high and whiney register.

No Comment was the only outfit that dared call itself punk rock, but parents needn’t worry. It was much closer to Green Day than it was to early punk rockers the Sex Pistols or G.G. Allin.

Between sets, judge Adam Mitchell said he was watching young musicians raise the bar.

“I didn’t play that good when I was 15. The level of musicianship is higher than it used to be,” said Mitchell, a Scotsman who has written songs for some of the biggest names in American music. “I’ll say something for the last three bands: The drummers are great. If you want to be in a band, I have some advice for you. Your band is only as good as its drummer. I mean that. Bad drummer, bad band. You won’t see ’em. Songs are important, and showmanship is important.”

The winning band will spend today recording audio and video on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, a nonprofit mobile recording studio.

The J Walkers appeared slightly dazed at their win.

“To be honest with you, right now I’m hungry. That’s what’s going through my mind,” Burchill said.

“We’re really happy to have this opportunity,” O’Leary said. “Happy to get a chance to be here.”

Stallons said they’ve never recorded a video before.

“Just home video,” he said. “Our moms are the producers.”

Their mothers hooted from the audience, cameras up and shooting.

In addition to a trophy, the J Walkers earned an entry into the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, which has a purse of $20,000. They also can enter the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus National Battle of the Bands, which includes a chance to perform during the Warped Tour.

The Texas Music Project donated $10,000 to the Start Up the Band project, which will give fifth-graders in five Denton elementary schools a chance to study music. - Denton Record-Chronicle