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With reams of positive press behind them, Metuchen, New Jersey-based The Roadside Graves recently released My Son’s Home, their third full-length blend of haunting folk, roots Americana, and straight-up rock.
As the sextet pressed on towards its date at this year’s Monolith Music Festival, MadeLoud spoke with vocalist/violinist/guitarist Jeremy Benson about New Jersey, songwriting, and the power of really good TV.
The name "Roadside Graves" invokes a kind of desolate, abandoned highway imagery consistent with the group's themes and sound. To what extent, if at all, did the sound and name inform each other?
Jeremy Benson: The name came about during a cross-country road trip that [singer/violinist] John [Gleason] and I took about 10 years ago when we were just starting to put the band together and write new material. There were (and still are) roadside graves everywhere, lots of death on the highway. The beauty and relative freedom of travel, mixed with a morbid heightened awareness of the constant proximity of death, came to light in “Song for a Dry State” (on our first album If Shackin’ Up is All You Want to Do) which John wrote on the road. It has a line in it about "passing by the roadside graves." We snagged the band name from the line in the song because it seemed to represent the darkness that underlies all our songs, even the upbeat ones. We were also new to playing country/folk music, and wanted a rootsy name but nothing too flowery or hokey...it had the right ring to it; there was some sand in it. Somehow it still holds up.
Even for an instrumentally well-rounded Americana outfit, Roadside Graves boast a fairly large headcount within the band. What is your approach to song-specific arrangements, and how do you balance inclusiveness with individual track necessity?
Benson: We write and arrange songs pretty much in one of two ways: John writes lyrics and a basic melody (or collaborates on the lyrics and music with me) and we bring it to the band to come to life. Or, we make songs up at full band rehearsals, on the spot...highly improvised at first, and then refine it over time.
In either scenario, everybody in the band shares a similar attitude of putting the lyrics first, that the arrangement should provide the landscape in which the narrative takes place. We keep ourselves in check by constantly questioning the appropriateness or necessity of any given instrument, word, groove, hook, bridge, etc. throughout the process. We are all aware that not playing is as important as playing, of the need for space, and that in order to sound good as individual musicians, we need to make each other sound good first. We try to consistently acknowledge the interconnectedness of the rhythm-tones and lyrics in our playing and recording.
Most people hear "New Jersey" and automatically think of a certain handful of iconic images, but your sound deviates fairly strongly from any of that. How would you describe the scene around Jersey these days?
Benson: New Jersey has a had a productive and healthy music scene for as long as I can remember. As kids, it was mostly hardcore and punk (Bouncing Souls, Lifetime). We were heavily immersed in that growing up. It's still a pretty thriving scene. Gaslight Anthem and the Screaming Females are two Jersey bands that are really making a name for themselves right now. And then there's Bruce Springsteen, of course, who has had a profound influence on us as a songwriter and performer, as well as the E Street Band as a great example of what a big band can accomplish sonically and visually. He's still a huge musical presence, even if he doesn't hang around the local dives and come to the house shows.
We get to play with some excellent bands in New Jersey, but we aren't really part of any cohesive scene that I know of, by virtue of the kind of music we play. We seem to float from scene to scene, sticking to none, playing with punk and folksy bands. Our shows are sort of a carnival scene unto themselves, bringing together a wide range of fans and friends who are old and young, indie and “mainstream,” bikers, soccer moms, hippies, punks, DJs, professors, lifeguards...that to me is the real scene in New Jersey: its variety and unpredictability.
Much has been made of the power of the internet, but no one's really sure how best to use it. Roadside Graves has a fairly savvy online presence and has received a good deal of attention from some noticeable online outlets. Do you think any of this has translated directly into tangible success - new bookings, larger crowds, and the like - or do you think the drive and effort matters more than the medium it is applied to?
Benson: The internet has contributed greatly to our (modest) success. We rarely grace the pages of print media. I don't think we've ever been reviewed in a music magazine. I would go so far as to say that without the generosity and support of many blogs and websites and the efforts of our internet-savvy label and management, we would not be doing national tours or playing big festivals like Monolith. Of course, in the end, you have to back it up with who you really are and what you are capable of doing in the moment - recording, touring, writing good songs and a solid live show are vital to any enduring success, I hope. We've been a band for ten years but it still feels like we are just getting started.
Much of the press the band receives fixates on some more obviously similar-sounding outfits, but are there any musical influences or favorites of yours people have either totally missed or would never guess?
Benson: We love the comparisons to our heroes: Dylan, The Band, Springsteen. It's touching and an honor to be mentioned alongside those guys, as well as talented contemporary artists like the Felice Brothers and Bonnie Prince Billy. But we all have eclectic taste in music. Mike, our pianist, comes from a classical background. Johnny, our new keyboardist, loves early Genesis. John rocks out to Meat Loaf and the Bee Gees; Colin, our drummer, is on a Ministry kick. Rich, our guitarist, is obsessed with Sister Rosetta Tharp. Dave, our bass player, has recently discovered a love for West African music. The Talking Heads have been my most recent major influence. No one has ever compared us to Tom Waits, The Geto Boys, Randy Newman, or Roger Miller, but they haunt everything we do.
Does the Anthony in "Lift Up the Gate" and "Anthony's Gate" refer to St. Anthony and his titular gate in Amsterdam?
Benson: The Anthony songs came about one day when John and I were driving to rehearsal, and were stopped in traffic behind a van advertising "Anthony's Gates," a company that puts up fences and gates around New Jersey. It had some kind of spiritual, gospel sound to it, and we just started singing "Anthony Oh lift up the gate...“ in the car on the way to practice, improvising on it. It eventually evolved into two songs about a man whose brother has died - two different snapshots of the same scene.
You mention an affinity for HBO's Deadwood series which, like a good deal of your songs, deals with a fairly complex set of characters and circumstances. Was there any character or arc in particular that resonated with you?
Benson: We are huge Deadwood fans. We also loved John From Cincinnati, another show by writer/producer David Milch. It sucks that they were canceled. If you've never heard Milch talk about Deadwood, I highly recommend it. He explains how the town is like an organism, and each character plays a certain role in its life; like organs, but that they are all interconnected and position themselves and reposition themselves constantly in relation to what is happening around them. They are in a state of constant adaptation. The values and codes of the town are not constant or absolute, but rather a "lie agreed upon." Similarly, their identities are not fixed, but rather in constant flux. I think that's what we latched on to the most- the idea that people, as individuals or groups, are dynamic and complicated, and struggle is everywhere.
Following Deadwood, we tried to make the characters in our songs, and even the music itself, liberated from binaries, the neat little categories and labels we so often rely upon: good/bad, sane/insane, happy/sad, fast/slow, success/failure . . . life isn't really like that. People are hopelessly complex and contradictory, and every day is filled with a thousand triumphs and fiascoes, starting with getting out of bed.
Roadside Graves play the MadeLoud stage at the Monolith Festival at 1:00pm on Saturday, September 12th.
