Terrible Buttons
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Terrible Buttons

Spokane, Washington, United States | INDIE

Spokane, Washington, United States | INDIE
Band Blues Folk

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"Terrible Buttons visit Bend; Washington band got its start busking in Portland"

A little more than two and a half years ago, Spokane, Wash.-based boyfriend and girlfriend Kent Ueland and Sarah Berentson went busking in Portland “for food money and stuff like that,” as Ueland puts it.

Playing the Portland streets went “really well,” he said. “We made 70 to 80 bucks a night, and we decided, ‘Hey, we should keep doing this.' We got our friends in on it, and the rest is history.”

They began jamming with their house mates, fellow students (and graduates and dropouts) at Whitworth University in Spokane. Before long, this assemblage consolidated into Terrible Buttons, whose sound is sometimes described as folk. However, this is nobody's Joan Baez, as another label affixed to the band, “horror folk,” clearly indicates.

In fact, the name Terrible Buttons hints at the darker tendencies.

Explained Ueland: “It's from a short story I read. It's immigrant literature about a Japanese factory worker who sews buttons on clothes from dawn till dusk, so she never really sees America in the daylight. As she's walking to and from work, she sees these people walking in the dark, and she just sees them as these terrible buttons ... because that's all she knows of America: buttons and darkness.”

That's kind of heavy.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he agreed.

Over the past couple of years, Terrible Buttons has played mostly regionally, venturing farther afield — as far as Colorado — over the course of four two-week tours. On Sunday, the band will play a New Year's Day show at The Horned Hand in Bend (see “If you go”). Ueland described the Buttons' live show as “raucous.”

“For a fairly new band, we've slowly become heavier, and that's kind of seen in the live show. It's really high-energy and we're all just really happy to be there. We hope that that comes across,” he said.

Terrible Buttons now tops out at seven members, although Ueland said there may soon be an eighth member joining the ranks. The band has made two EPs, “Brute Neighbors” (2010) and this year's “Plates of Ether” (check out www .reverbnation.com/terriblebuttons to hear samples).

Influences including David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion), Will Oldham (aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy) and Fleet Foxes can be heard, but there's one that springs to mind even faster: Tom Waits.

Ueland himself mentioned Waits first when asked about his songwriting influences.

“He's a genius,” he said of Waits. “He's a big one.”

The song “Smoke Around the Lamps,” with its disquieting, fun-house-from-hell atmosphere could be a lost Waits track: “Stumbling through the haze/ I come upon an empty grave/ And it meets my empty gaze.” Creepy, and it gets even more haunting when Berentson jumps in with her backup wail.

Speaking of hell, Ueland and Berentson duet on “Teams,” a Crooked Fingers-esque ballad whose protagonists seem on the verge of death. Ueland sings that he hopes his partner is right: “I'll take that fiery lake/ If you get the pearly gates/ And we'll both get just what we deserve.”

However, new songs from the band's forthcoming full-length recording, slated for release sometime next year, are the ones that seem to be going over best live, Ueland said. He credits the band's tightness and improved songwriting, forged by many hours playing together.

“All the new tracks that aren't on any of the records, I'm really excited about,” he said. “They seem to get a better response from the crowd than any of our old stuff. So I'm excited to share (them).” - The Bend Bulletin - Bend, OR


"Eclectic sounds and profound lyrics"

After a very successful year, Terrible Buttons returned to the Local Lounge recently, having dropped by in November of last year to present their "Brute Neighbors" EP. From taking home the Best New Artist and Band of the Year titles in the 2011 Sommy local music awards to getting attention from The Inlander, these Whitworth students have certainly captivated the Spokane music scene. Through their lyrics, they continue to tell long-forgotten stories from American history, deal with the frustrations of youth, and point out the inconsistencies and hypocrisy they've found in traditional institutions. Musically, they combine the talents of seven close friends who play a variety of typical and uncommon instruments, some of the latter being the trumpet, trombone, and fiddle. Lately, Sarah has taken on more lead vocal duties and KB now offers some additional harmonies. To avoid being pigeon-holed by anyone else, they've casually labeled themselves as "horror folk," but even that's just a passing term, as they have taken on some more experimental qualities as they develop. To share their new CD "Plates of Ether" with the public, Terrible Buttons came by the 103.1 KCDA Local Lounge this past Sunday, performing some songs live as a full band, as well.
- 103.1 KCDA - Spokane, WA


"Terrible Buttons talks life, death, and making good music"

The band Terrible Buttons really isn’t terrible in any way.

In fact, any listener would be hard pressed to find a song that could be perceived as bad. In their new record, Brute Neighbors, the Spokane-based band truly strikes a chord of excellence with their sleepy, intricate folk masterpieces.

Kent Ueland, one of the band’s eight members, describes the band’s name as a haunting image from a short story he once read about a Japanese immigrant working in a factory where she sewed buttons from dusk to dawn.

“She would see people walking as she was on her way to work, but all she really saw were these terrible buttons walking down the street. Because that was all she knew of America. Darkness, and buttons,” said Ueland.

Terrible Buttons have indeed mastered the kind of music that makes you want to sit and think. It’s a subtle brilliance: one that doesn’t launch itself at you, but rather coaxes you into a calm satisfaction.

Ueland believes it to be the layered affects of multiple instruments and vocals that create this feeling.

“We all play very simple parts, and rely on the layering and instrumentation to keep it interesting. I think the ambience is a product of all the layers coming together over the same thing,” said Ueland.

Ueland describes the band’s creation as a very organic process, where essentially, each member drifted into a room.

“Me and Sarah started messing around with some songs we wrote downstairs, and slowly people walked downstairs and said, ‘I sorta play [an instrument],’ so we grew and grew. We started picking up instruments we didn’t know how to play,” said Ueland.

Though Ueland coins one of their biggest influences as Fleet Foxes, what sets Terrible Buttons apart from fellow indie-alt-folk competitors is easily the quiet, lachrymose quality about the way the music flows.

“I absolutely love [Fleet Foxes’] music and we listen to them all the time, but that’s not the music we make. Our songs aren’t mountain-y or rural-y or down-home. Sure, there are folk roots in the chords we play, because that’s the music we love, but we aren’t trying to be Fleet Foxes. They are good enough at that,” said Ueland.

Ueland admits that the somber feeling comes from the fear of not knowing what happens after we die.

“Basically, there are three options after death. One: there’s nothing, and we cease to exist. Two: there’s something, and its better than what we experience now, or three: there’s something, and it’s worse than what we experience now. We debate about this a lot within the band, but from where I’m standing, two of those three options sound pretty bad, and I don’t like those odds. So I sing about it,” said Ueland.

The members of Terrible Buttons do, in some ways, fulfill the dreams of the Japanese immigrant from the short story Ueland once read: the band is living their own American dream, one of having the freedom of being able to do what they love.

And Ueland gets it.

“There’s nothing more rewarding than traveling with your seven best friends and trying to get people interested in what you are doing.”

Terrible Buttons will be playing Monday, May 23rd at The Wild Buffalo at 9:30 PM. - What's Up! Magazine - Bellingham, WA


"Terrible Buttons at The Marquee"

They made it to Portland on the Fourth of July without any money and spent the next three nights busking the streets. Kent Ueland and Sarah Berentson sang Beatles covers, like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” filling an open guitar case with $80 a night.

And when they got home, they formed a band.

“Me and my girlfriend were just trying to get a free trip in Portland and people were so generous,” says Ueland, the 21-year-old lead singer and guitarist for that band, Terrible Buttons. “People were giving us beer and Starbursts and cornbread — whatever they had, they just threw it in. That trip kind of solidified our relationship and desire to make music.”

It was three years ago that Ueland and Berentson, the younger siblings of successful ex-Spokane musicians Dane Ueland and Kaylee Cole, took that trip. That’s when their “college house” — occupied by musicians, Whitworth dropouts, graduates and students — became home to their new seven-piece folk band. They wanted to be a mellow band, maybe like Horse Feathers.

But they became something different.

The group of early 20-somethings became the band they are today: a crowd of melancholy minstrels, who — behind a wall of accordions, keyboards, glockenspiels, violins, banjos, percussion, and guitar — sing about poisonings, the evils of marriage, loneliness and the absence of god. Ueland is the anachronism at the center of the dark folksy carnival that is Terrible Buttons. His throaty vocals warble alongside Berentson’s, creating a playful and absurd sound. The mini orchestra draws from the sounds of Tom Waits, Fleet Foxes and the agnostic, sorrowful lyrics of David Bazan.

“The genre has kind of become a point of contention within the band,” Ueland says. “I describe it as horror folk because not only the things we talk about, but the vibe of our music is much darker.”

“We are not a happy-go-lucky band by any means,” he adds, wearing a black hoodie and yellow plastic bracelet that reads “gluttony.”

Ueland says sadness and religion are effective lyrical tools to get his message across. The songwriter grew up in a devout Christian home, graduated from a private Christian school in Oregon with only four other people in his class, and now attends a private religious university. As a result, his lyrics question the morality, vernacular and lifestyle of everything he’s ever known.

“At one point I said ‘I will never write another song about Jesus,’ which of course has not been true,” he says. “I just want people to wake up to the world that they’re in … to slow down and take a second look at how what we believe affects what we do.”

Despite the grave subject matter, Terrible Buttons maintains its youthfulness, and under Ueland’s direction, themes of godlessness, love and abandonment sound innocent, instead of trite.

“I don’t have what Aristotle would call practical wisdom,” Ueland says. “But youth is such a powerful thing. Revolutions occur because the youth get mobilized. Do I have the life experience to be an expert on subject matters that I sing about? Probably not. But I do think it’s worth your time.”

Today, Terrible Buttons still busks for “whiskey and beer money” while on tour. In fact, most of the band members are unemployed. “None of us are big contributors to society other than this band,” Ueland says, half joking.

Once they busked the streets at Western Washington University’ Red Square. The cops were called when they sang “Weed and Whiskey.”

“The cops told us we had to leave and it was kind of this Bob Dylan moment,” Ueland says. “We didn’t stop playing while the cops were talking to us. We just walked away while screaming ‘Weed and Whiskey.’”

The band has created a juggernaut online presence and religiously devout fans. Their 2010 Brute Neighbors EP and 2011 Plates of Ether EP has even landed them a contract with Plastic Horse Records based out of Minnesota. If everything goes as planned, the band’s upcoming tour will lead them to Minnesota where they’ll record more material, and by this time next year, Ueland says the whole band hopes to live there.

Until then, Terrible Buttons will continue to woo Spokane with their sorrowful tunes.

Says Ueland: “I think everyone leaves our shows a little sadder than before they came.”
- The Inlander - Spokane, WA


"Terrible Buttons in the Crocodile's Bar"

Spokane's Terrible Buttons sound like a musical project that's born in a dark, old house, during those desperate moments right before your mind goes over the edge from sanity to insanity. They play theatrical and spooky blues-laden folk rock with lyrics about being covered with snakes, ghosts, and getting a divorce. So, you know, the pleasant things in life.

Even though they're from Eastern Washington, there's something about their music that makes me feel like I'm wandering around the French Quarter in New Orleans in the fall, at night. There's beauty there—with horns, chimes, and harmonies—but the beauty is haunted with the weight of defeat and a lifetime's worth of sad stories. It could either be exactly what you need on a dark, wet Sunday night or exactly what you don't need. I'll let you make that call.

Added bonus: The show's only $5. - The Stranger - Seattle, WA


Discography

1. Brute Neighbors EP (2010)
2. Plates of Ether (2011)
3. RUNT (forthcoming)

Photos

Bio


Terrible Buttons adds a little darkness to their
blues/folk roots. Their sound combines the blunt
lyricism of David Bazan with the Fleet Foxes’
indie/folk instrumentation. Formed nearly two
three ago on the streets of Portland by vocalists
Sarah Berentson and Kent Ueland, Terrible Buttons,
located in Spokane, WA, now consists of 7
members who utilize an array of acoustic folk instruments,
from trumpet to accordion, adding an intimate edge to
their wall of sound style. Although Terrible Buttons uses
complex instrumentation, they pride themselves in the
bare simplicity of their music in an attempt to accent
their heartfelt lyrics. Their lyrics approach topics
ranging from the evils of marriage to loneliness and
the absence of god.
Their ceaseless work ethic and urgent sound have
garnered them attention from som eof the biggest names
in independent music production, including “iTunes Top 100”
artists Ryan Lewis & Macklemore, as well as Grammy Award
winning producer and composer Pete Stewart. Keep an eye
out for Terrible Buttons as the tour bus continues to roll,
and they continue to challenge the bounds of today's
often-tired folk paradigm.