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Missouri Mule are one my favorite approved friend requests of the past month or so. The band plays the kind of whiskey-soaked rock and roll that dreams are made of, if your dreams consist of a lot of alcohol and cigarette smoke like mine do. Fans of Lucero, Tim Barry and Rumbleseat would be well-served to check out these dudes. - WhatWeHate.com
Missouri Mule: Ask your local bartender
Country or punk, rural or rock, Satan or salvation—Davis-based highball Missouri Mule mixes it just right
By John Phillips
Order a Missouri Mule at any bar and you’ll get a concoction of whiskey, Campari bitters and any number of extra alcoholic ingredients, depending on who’s making the cocktail. Drink up the tunes of the local Davis band named after the drink, originally conceived for President Harry S. Truman, and you’ll be guzzling a mix of pop-punk, country, and a few other influences, just for flavor.
So, yes, there’s a little bit of everything to Missouri Mule. But aren’t they in the end a country band, through and through?
Songwriters Jesse Miller, named for the gunslinger Jesse James by his Missourian father, and Kyle Olson, raised on Fat Wreck Chords punk in a small rural town in the Central Valley, owe influence to the music of their early childhood.
“When I was about 4 years old, my dad played Hank Williams and Johnny Cash on his record player in the living room,” Miller explains. “That’s all I had growing up … my dad’s country records.”
Spoon-fed an American Western soundtrack, it’s no surprise then that Miller’s songs have a gritty, heartfelt country sound. But like many other similar country-punk outfits, Missouri Mule’s inspiration definitely extends beyond their typecast, that commonplace “cigarettes and whiskey” image.
For instance, with songs about drinking, heartbreak and Satan (and drinking), it isn’t difficult to see why some listeners don’t notice Bruce Springsteen and Jawbreaker’s touch. Miller says they “don’t set out to be a country or a punk band.
“I think it just happens.”
Northern California is well-represented in the band. Singer/guitarist Miller, who also plays steel guitar, hails from Santa Cruz and also was once a member of Davis indie band Buildings Breeding. Olson plays guitar and sings and is from the Modesto area; drummer Jason “Cannonball” Chase is a born Golden Stater; and the group’s only member not from around here isn’t even from the United States: bassist Ben Brezing, from Germany.
Olson and Chase also play in the band SecondShot, a pop-punk group with a sizeable fan base overseas. That band got its big break when a Japanese label contacted Fat Wreck Chords about finding local talent; FWC dropped SecondShot’s name, who was recording in the same studio as several of their bands.
Now, they’ve toured Japan and Europe extensively.
Missouri Mule has yet to go on the road, but the band has a few California dates in the works. “Regional mini-tours just make more sense at this point,” Miller says, thinking that if you can get to Fresno or Santa Barbara once every few months, it’s more logical than taking off work just to play Utah every 730 days.
“I think we’re smart about it,” Olson adds. “We obviously have jobs and pay bills … but also have no hesitation to hit the road at any point when it’s offered or available.”
The album Missouri Mule will be promoting this summer, an EP due on July 14, was produced by Pete Bernhard and Cooper McBean, close friends and members of the very popular the Devil Makes Three.
Still, the question’s left unanswered: Is Missouri Mule a country band or what? Maybe the great Hank Williams Sr. has the answer:
“I don’t know what you mean by country music. I just make music the way I know how.”
- Sacramento News & Review
Discography
The Honeylung EP (10.13.09)
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Bio
Missouri Mule is heartbroken, beat-down, and overworked. And they prefer it that way.
Because from this turmoil comes a tattered and dusty sound, their music rooted in dense bones of corn-fed Bakersfield Country and wrapped in taut veins of punk rock. Mule brings songs of drinking and devotion to the glossy bar top of American country punk, taking the rattle and shakes of Dwight Yoakam and Hank Williams and connecting the bye-gone era to a teenage love affair with Jawbreaker and Lagwagon.
With the exception of Ben Brezing (bass) who was raised in Germany, Kyle Olson (vocals, guitar), Jesse Miller (vocals, guitar, lap steel), and Jason Chase, a.k.a. Cannonball, (drums) are all California boys who started playing in punk bands in their teens. Today, in addition to Missouri Mule, Olson and Chase both play in SecondShot and Van Hammersly, never letting go of a passion for discordant musical rebellion.
This desire to be defiant carries over to Mule’s uncompromising and raucous live shows, a band working on the idea that country and blues are the original punk rock. Like lost souls in the dust bowl, Mule hold a smoldering candle to the country music of eras past as their sound wanders along the same state lines as contemporary acts like Lucero, Gaslight Anthem, and Drive-By Truckers.
Blue-collar boys living much like modern day working-class hero Bruce Springsteen, Missouri Mule craft their songs of heartache and tribulation for the everyday man and woman. Their debut EP was produced and recorded with friends and mentors Pete Bernhard and Cooper McBean of The Devil Makes Three. Due out October 13th, the finished product promises to be a shuddering and overcast look at the working man’s everyday life.
- Bree Davies, 2008 (www.breedavies.com)
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