The Brooklyn Based Honky-Tonk Band Premieres “Pick Me Up” With The Daily Country
Brooklyn based honky-tonk band, Bourbon Express, announces the release of their latest studio-album, Cry About It Later, produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel (Steve Earle, Joan Jett), on April 20, 2018. Today (3/6), The Daily Country premieres “Pick Me Up”, the first single from the album. “Pick Me Up” is an autobiographical song written from the point of view of a newly wedded woman who’s so depressed about being broke in the wake of her honeymoon that she wishes there was some kind of buzz she could get that would last until payday. Listen here.
Bourbon Express is wife and husband, Katie Curley (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Brendan Curley (guitar), and Sarah Kinsey (vocals). Katie and Brendan met at a bar called A Bar and discovered that they were not only from the same part of the country, Home, WA and Tacoma, WA, roughly a 40-minute drive from one another, but that they also shared an uncannily similar taste in music. “I didn’t believe him when he told me that he liked all the country musicians I liked. We were in Brooklyn in the twenty-first century comparing notes on Kitty Wells and Ernest Tubb, and I thought he was just trying to pick me up, so I didn’t return his call,” says Katie. A few weeks later, however, she found herself in a pickle when she was invited to perform at the now defunct Rodeo Bar and she didn’t have a band. She remembered her fleeting companion’s words at the bar, “I could add any number of instruments to your sound,” and sent him a message asking if he would be interested in the gig.
Their chance connection in 2011 eventually launched the band. After a few years of playing in various configurations, the couple, now married, formed Bourbon Express with vocalist Sarah Kinsey and bassist/harmony singer Andrew Dykeman. When describing this country-in-the-big-city band, Bourbon Express, The Daily Country explains that their music “Successfully transports you to a honky-tonk where the whiskey and music are free flowing.”
Katie first approached Ambel to produce Cry About It Later in the summer of 2016. They met at his studio where she recalls. “We were just back from touring Appalachia, and I had lost my voice. He was just back from touring Alaska, and he’d picked up a cold that was blocking his eardrums. It was a challenge to communicate!” In spite of the setbacks, the meeting was productive and launched the project. Katie notes that it also inspired the song “Telecaster Man.” “Roscoe entertained me for a few minutes with snippets of his backstory, and because I had mentioned that Brendan and I were fans of Kenny Vaughan, he also threw in snippets of his backstory. I noticed that there were elements in common between all three guitarists’ humble beginnings.” She started penning “Telecaster Man” on the subway ride home and finished it later that day in her apartment. But due to a severe case of Laryngitis, she couldn’t sing it for a full three weeks.
Katie brought “Telecaster Man” along with eleven other songs she’d written over the course of several years to rehearsal, and the band got to work. At the time, their drummer had just moved to Colorado and harmony singer, Kinsey, had been playing the snare drum at live shows. “Before he moved out of town, I asked our drummer to give Sarah a lesson,” Katie recalls. “Sarah dutifully practiced and got good enough to play live shows, but we needed someone to play a full kit for the recording.” Ambel suggested his longtime friend and colleague, Phil Cimino. Katie recounts her reaction, “I hadn’t imagined such a strong and at times ‘rock’ sound on the drums, but once I heard it, I loved it!”
While actual days in the studio amount to about two weeks, there have been many stops and starts along the way due to conflicting schedules and financial hurdles. “We wrestled with the idea of launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund at least part of the process, but ultimately felt that we’d rather do it ourselves and have a finished product to offer people before asking for money.” She laughs and adds, “That meant that my husband/guitar player (Brendan Curley) and I each took second jobs and ate ramen more often than we would have liked for about a year.”
Bourbon Express invited Jonny Lam (Sinkane, Honeyfingers) to play pedal steel, and Melody Berger (Ganstagrass, The Berger Sisters) to play fiddle. Other instrumentation includes vocal harmonies by Kinsey and Dykeman, captured by engineer Tim Hatfield; Dykeman on bass; B. Curley on piano, mandolin, baritone guitar, electric 12-string, and electric guitars; K. Curley on harp on “Dream Girl;” and Jason Mercer on bass on “Cold Quiet Drink,” which Ambel deems “the campfire song.” For that, the closing track, featuring Ambel on acoustic guitar and Lam on dobro, Ambel brought everyone into the same room to sit or stand in a circle with mics placed just-so by engineer, Mario Viele, and no headphones. Says Katie of the campfire song, “Once everybody had their parts, I took off my shoes and just sang.”
During the summer of 2017, with tracking on Cry About It Later nearly completed, Bourbon Express received the surprising news that Dykeman was leaving the band to pursue other opportunities. Everyone wished him well, and it was at that point that the title of the record became clear to Katie. “I was thinking about how after nearly three years of playing together and making this record, we would have to shoot the cover without him and it might be kind of sad. Cry About It Later seemed apt.”
Bourbon Express’ newest album Cry About It Later consists of twelve tracks that were recorded at Cowboy Technical Services Recording Rig with Eric “Roscoe” Ambel (Steve Earle, Joan Jett) producing. All songs were written by Katie Curley.
Catch Bourbon Express live:
Saturday, April 21 – Hank’s Saloon, Brooklyn NY – Album Release Show
Wednesday, May 23 – Gypsy Sally’s Vinyl Lounge, Washington DC
Thursday, May 24 – WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, TN
Thursday, May 24 – Southgate House Revival, Newport, KY