St. Cloud
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St. Cloud

Austin, Texas, United States | INDIE

Austin, Texas, United States | INDIE
Band Rock Americana

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"St. Cloud is far away from the folk"

AUSTIN 360 CONCERT SERIES
St. Cloud is far away from the folk
By Brandon Cobb
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes, and for a local example of that, we turn to Shane Walker of the Gougers and Brian Beken of the South Austin Jug band, who have been familiar fixtures in Austin's folk scene for years now. With their new collaboration, St. Cloud, the onetime bandmates have moved away from the Americana that has been their bread and butter for so long and ventured into new territory.

Beken has traded in his fiddle for an electric guitar and a pedal board full of effects, a bold move for the third-place finisher at the 2009 National Old Time Fiddlers' Contest. For Walker, the move was foreshadowed on the Gougers' 2007 release, 'A Long Day for the Weathervane,' an electrified departure from the band's traditional sound.

We sat down with the two at a local coffee house to discuss the new project, the challenges of starting fresh and the cryptic message on their MySpace page.

American-Statesman: Tell me about how St. Cloud came together. Are you guys on hiatus from your current bands?

Shane Walker:Yeah, it kind of happened at the same time for both of us. We played in the Sidehill Gougers together a long time ago ... so, we've been talking about getting a rock band together for some time.

Brian Beken:We've just been playing really folky stuff for a long time, and I think both of us wanted the chance to get loud and obnoxious.

I noticed instantly that two tracks on your MySpace page are a real departure from the type of music the two of you are associated with. Where is this new inspiration coming from?

Walker: St. Cloud really reflects what we actually listen to when we turn on our CD players. I was pretty gung-ho folk for a long time, but then around 2005 I started listening to Wilco and I realized I was missing that playing in a folk band. I think being creative is a lot about starting over anyway, so it's been a refreshing change of pace. (St. Cloud) is easier to get into on a personal level, and consequently I think it makes me a better ... I don't want to say musician, because I consider myself more of a writer ... but better.

Beken:It's something that I've always wanted to do ... for me it was a chance to get some angst out. What you heard online is actually a little mellower than the live show, which is a lot louder with crazier guitar tones.

You've been playing shows since April and I imagine you get some spillover of Gougers and Jug Band fans at your shows. What's their response been to the new band?

Walker:Our first show was at Trophy's, and we dove right in. I think the people that were familiar with the Gougers and the Jug Band may not have known what to think about the show. Our friends, on the other hand, are excellent and I think they liked it a lot more. It was nice to have that.

Did that first show feel like going back to when you first started playing music? Did you get nervous?

Beken: Absolutely. It was like Day One for me at least, because I have a whole new thing I have to do now. I don't just bring a fiddle case any more. Now I have an amp and sometimes three guitars and pedals ... half of the time none of it works. (Laughs)

Walker: It's certainly over my head compared to what I'm used to. Like I said, I don't think of myself as a musician as much as I do a writer, so I've had to adjust some of the things I maybe used to do before a gig ... leave out some things so that my mind is present enough to keep up musically.

You guys are currently writing material for an album. What is that process like?

Walker: I read a story once about a professor who taught a pottery class. He conducted this experiment over several semesters where he would divide the class into two groups. One group he would grade on how much pottery they could make in a semester. They would weigh it, and this much was an A, this much was a B and so on. The other half would be graded on the single best piece of pottery they could produce in a semester ... and what he found was that the best product consistently came from the group that just made as much pottery as possible. I think that's because to do that you have to strip away thought and insecurity and just let go. For me, the process is a lot like that. Since Brian and I started writing for St. Cloud, I just come in with something I've written in my notebook and put it with some cool guitar part that he's come up with ... instantly a lot of the pressure and insecurities are gone.

I have to ask about the statement on your MySpace page that says 'All this on borrowed equipment which is now stolen.' What does that mean?

Beken: A few months ago my car was broken into and they took my fiddle, which was the biggest blow, three guitars and a pedal board. Luckily I have really cool parents who were willing to help me replace that stuff. But we used that gear to record with and unfortunately a lot of that stuff was borrowed.

Walker: Yeah that phone call was a little awkward. But we're back on borrowed equipment again. Like I said, our friends are great.

St. Cloud plays Thursday, Oct. 29 with Justin Jones inside Stubb's as part of the Austin360 Concert series. Check out www.

austin360.com/concertseriesfor show details. - Austin360.com


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St. Cloud EP

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"Being creative is all about starting over… and this band is so different from anything we have ever done before... we have the freedom just get together and experiment and see what sticks… It's an incredibly refreshing thing, and we all feel pretty lucky to be a part of it." -- St. Cloud

St. Cloud is a Rock band from Austin, Texas that started as a songwriting session between friends Shane Walker from The Gougers and Brian Beken from The South Austin Jug Band. Through the dissolution of these projects in 2009, St. Cloud became an opportunity to move past their traditional folk-music origins and into a more progressive direction.

"We listen to Wilco, Tom Waits, Radiohead, Terry Allen," says Walker. "It's wrong to say we sound like any of those groups. No one sounds like Radiohead. But all of those guys bring to the table this overwhelming originality; and, in that sense, ironically, they are the bands we emulate".

All emulation aside, the lyrical presence and sonic prowess that this band wields is impressive. Volatile guitar tones, ruminative lyrics, and articulate rhythmic movements are at the center of St. Cloud's sound.

Supported by The Underground Agency (Austin TX), St. Cloud’s will self-release a full-length album in 2011 and keep things moving forward with innovative original music for fans and critics.