The Bourbonites

The Bourbonites don’t look for a niche or offer smoke-and-mirrors definitions: They play rock and think country. Or vice versa—the formula gets inverted, but the ingredients stay the same. If there’s any “alt” left in alt-country, it’s getting pretty tired by now, but The Bourbonites aren’t trying to be an alternative to anything; they just want to burn down the stage and get someone to pick up their bar tab. Vocalist and songwriter Calvin Todd Stephens rolls up years of experience in punk and garage bands, and ties it to a songwriting sensibility that runs from Merle Travis to Gram Parsons, and on to the modern sounds of Elvis Costello and Steve Earle. The common ground isn’t tied to genre, but rather to a love of good songwriting, shoot-from-the-hip musicianship, and the real roots of American music.
From the Peach State to the Evergreen State, Stephens made his way to the cool Northwest from the warmer climes of Atlanta. Bassist Jay Perry was American-made in Detroit, while Seattle offered up two of her own sons in drummer Roger Johnson and guitarist/pedal steel player Patrick Porter. This lineup gives The Bourbonites plenty of country-rocking firepower, as well as a tremendous capacity for the consumption of grain alcohol and malt liquor. Bonding around a commitment to good songs above all else, The Bourbonites rallied behind the cream of the C. Todd Stephens oeuvre, and kicked out This is just a drem, a record that threatens to jump out of your stereo and make your speakers dance on the bar. A dozen songs of love and loss, arrival and departure, friends and fools, all wrapped up in plenty of stinging guitar, haunting swells of pedal steel, rock solid rhythms and high lonesome harmonies. This is just a drem is the theme song for the summer’s best party, the soundtrack to a thousand broken hearts and the best damn musical cure for a hangover this side of the Mississippi.