the Urban Artist Group presents...

the devil makes three

Recent years have seen a considerable increase in bands and singer/songwriters abandoning the usual standards by which popular music is measured, and understandably so. Many of them have dropped the electric instrumentation for acoustic arrangements, while just as many have chosen to employ a good deal of peculiar auxiliary instruments uncommon to today's genres. And although this phenomenon is not entirely exclusive to the more underground music communities, it has yet to find its way into mainstream popularity (and hopefully it never does, for the mainstream is where good music goes to die).
           These past few years have also seen a particularly notable rise in bands and singer/songwriters developing some rather remarkable styles. To be sure, some of these styles have never before been attempted in such ways, and I personally find that to be more than a little exciting. One such example is the Devil Makes Three---a folk punk, country riot, and acoustibilly blues trio out of Santa Cruz, California.
           Even though the Devil Makes Three are a very modern example, they have a decidedly old-timey feel to some of their songs---a good many of their songs, truth be told---with vintage style music and classic themes combined with elements of the underground punk ethos. Such a fusion doesn't draw a perceptible line between the band's fan base as many would imagine, but rather unifies them under a single flag of musical appreciation. That is, the Devil Makes Three perform for some pretty diverse crowds, which undoubtedly has much to do with the fact that their music touches on a slew of genres, some more than others, from folk, bluegrass, ragtime and country to jazz, blues, rockabilly and punk. And, in our recent interview, when I asked the Devil Makes Three about the influences that ultimately assisted in shaping their sound, they said...
           "Our sound was largely shaped by our parents' record collections, as well as with the help of our friend from Texas, John Dobec, who introduced us to good country music. He opened our eyes to some really good stuff we were missing."
           The Devil Makes Three are Pete Bernhard, guitar and lead vocals, Lucia Turino, upright bass, and Cooper McBean, guitar and banjo. Together the trio have developed a sound altogether different from what we typically expect from acoustic bands in general; a sound so centered on rhythm, so masterfully tight, so well balanced between guitar-picking and chord pattern, and so brilliantly carried forth on the notes of the upright that their music comes across neither too cluttered nor too simplistic. In fact, with Bernhard and McBean producing those impossibly catchy rhythms, and with Lucia slapping and plucking the thick strings of her monstrous upright in series after series of low end note arrangements, their collective instrumentation is so percussive that they don't even require a drummer. And they don't have one. Nor do they have any plans to add one to the lineup.  
           The trio wasn't always without a drummer, however. That role was briefly filled in the beginning by a drummer and singer/songwriter named Boaz Vilozny. And when I asked Pete about the whole drummer-less band concept and how it came about, he explained: "We had a drummer when we first started the band. He was also a singer/songwriter. He was great and complemented us nicely, but he had a kid and needed to go be a dad. We are covering a song he wrote on our new album. Once he left, we couldn't find anyone as good, and we found the audience kept dancing, so we never replaced him. Plus, drums are heavy as hell." 
           As far as the band members' lives prior to coming together as the Devil Makes Three, Pete Bernhard said, "We are all children of the north. No Texans in our group at all. And although I lived in Tennessee for a short time, we haven't toured much down south. We are all country kids. We all grew up on rural delivery routes. And we all know what 30 degrees below zero feels like."
           Having geographically abandoned ship, as it were, Pete and Cooper, who had been friends since the eighth grade, went from the state of Vermont, with its majestic mountains, where beautiful alpine forests thrive year-round between the timberline and the snowline, where autumn is breathtakingly colorful, and where spring brings the melting of snow and what the locals call the "mud season," all the way to the West Coast, less than a hundred miles from San Francisco, to the city of Santa Cruz, California, where thick fogbanks roll in off of Monterey Bay, where the salty presence of the ocean is delightfully inescapable, and where the climate is much milder and uneventful from what they were accustomed to while growing up in the Northeast. Arriving in a new town is almost always a chance to redefine oneself, though Pete and Cooper, perhaps a bit hardened from the road and wiser for having experienced the world in such a way, seemingly opted to enter a new place as the individuals they had always been rather than adjust their characters to better suit their new environment. So Santa Cruz no doubt found them essentially the same human beings they were before embarking on their cross-country journeys, carrying along with them not only their belongings but their musical talents, which collectively shook the underground music community like an earthquake some time later. Lucia, however, is a native of New Hampshire, only having ventured out to California for the purpose of college matriculation, when she met Pete and Cooper. She had always wanted to play bass, and since Pete and Cooper had already rented an upright for their music, they brought her aboard, excited that she would be able to learn as they went along, her skills shaped by the endeavor, and not overplaying the songs as a seasoned bassist undoubtedly would have. 
           "We started playing as the Devil Makes Three in 2002 with the plan of making acoustic music fun to see live," explained Pete in our interview. "We all loved punk music and many of our friends were in punk bands, so we started opening for them. As it turns out, I think punk music and country and blues have a lot in common, thematically. Basically, we wanted people to get out of their seats and have some fun. There were so many folk music shows that were so boring they were like a museum or something. The music was good; the shows were just dead."
           Now, if you've heard any songs by the Devil Makes Three, or better yet have attended one or more of their shows, you know all too well that their live performances are anything but "dead." The music excites the audience, and that reaction only serves to further excite the band members' playing. The two, both audience and band, feed off of one another in frenzies of playing and dancing, whooping and hollering and applauding, the close connection maintained from start to finish. And a Devil Makes Three show is unquestionably one of the only shows where one can see punkers with mohawks beside good old boys sporting cowboy hats, as well as indie guys and gals with skin-tight jeans and disheveled-on-purpose hairdos beside suit-wearing gents sipping top shelf whiskey accompanied by ladies in dresses, in addition to a good many other walks of life, almost like a World/Inferno Friendship Society show. In fact, it was in a journalistic piece by Linda Koffman at gtweekly.com (Good Times Santa Cruz) where I read: The Devil Makes Three has long been plucking its way toward audiences of publications like Thrasher Magazine by erupting into a punk-tinged acoustic sound suitable to serenade an urban riot just as much as a barn hoe-down. And that is very true. All things considered, their unlikely fusion of sounds has created a sort of unification of the many genres that would otherwise be attending separate events...which makes their music more important, meaningful and worthwhile than even they realize.
           From the audience, one can look up to the stage where the band is going through their set and see Pete Bernhard's clean-shaven and youthful face pouring forth vocals that don't quite seem to match his looks, while he shuffles about, strumming and picking the hell out of his guitar strings. One can just as clearly see Lucia Turino, attractive with her long brunette tresses and a large tattoo of a bull's skull just visible at the center of her upper chest (its long horns extending up toward her shoulders), her body partly obscured by her upright bass, plucking and slapping at the thick strings with one hand while the fingers of the other hold down the corresponding notes. At last, one can also take note of Cooper McBean, looking almost like a seasoned trucker or outlaw biker with both his shoulder-length light brown locks and facial hair heavily flecked with traces of the fiery red of a Scotsman (only rarely in photos have I seen him clean-shaven, at which times he looks like another person altogether), and with several tattoos adorning his exposed skin (including a sizable tribute to his home state of Vermont inked into the flesh across his throat and wrapping around the sides of his neck). It's not just their chemistry as an acoustic trio, producing catchy, toe-tappin' sounds with a punk rock edge that seems meant to be, but they also seem to go together in appearance as well, strange as that may be. Just take one brief glance at a photo of these three, and you will most likely see exactly what I mean.
           One might say that it is because each Devil Makes Three song is a melting pot of sounds, they have gained a melting pot of a fan base. It's the kind of sound that is the best of all words for a musician, as well as for all those eclectic music lovers out there across this vast and crazy City Earth. But with an abundance of creative energy and natural songwriting talent, Pete Bernhard has taken on a solo project on his off-time from the Three, recording his debut cd in 2006, "Things I Left Behind," for which he evidently developed a more stripped-down, folky sound in comparison to that which we are used to hearing from him. He has even taken his solo songs on the road, playing at smaller venues. And the reception of "Things I Left Behind" must have been quite favorable, for there are rumors that a follow-up to it is in the works (though I don't have any definite information on that yet).
           Pete, Cooper, and Lucia are currently in the studio laying down the tracks for their latest album. This will be their fourth album to date, and a much anticipated one at that. Personally, I have yet to hear any of the new material, so I am rather excited about it, and the only insight I have been given into the contents of the new record is that the band will be covering a song by their former drummer, as well as an Elvis Constello song, and they will be employing some distorted guitars for the first time in order to better capture the many strengths of their live shows (which I was confessedly more than a little surprised to find out). One thing is absolutely certain: my fingers will be going directly to the keyboard of my computer immediately following my first listen to the new Devil Makes Three material, typing up a short review as a follow-up to this article.
           As far as that which initially got me hooked on their music, there wasn't one song in particular, but several. I especially dove into their repertoire of songs when Pete sent me a press package including a copy of their eponymous re-release debut on Milan Records. Even more than the other tracks, I can listen over and over to "Old Number Seven," one of the favorites of the band's live performances; a drinking song about one's relationship with whiskey---Jack Daniels, to be more specific---played in an acoustibilly blues style, along with some country and folk punk flavors thrown in for good measure. With an opening verse like...

I guess I grew up on an old dirt road
Pedal to the metal, always did what I was told
Till I found out that my brand new clothes
Came second hand from the rich kids next door
When I grew up fast, I guess I grew up mean
There?s a thousand things inside my head I wish I ain?t seen
And now I just wander through a real bad dream
Feelin' like I'm comin' apart at the seams

And a chorus like...

Thank you, Jack Daniels, Old Number Seven
Tennessee whiskey's got me drinkin' in heaven
Angels start to look good to me
They're gonna have to deport me to the fiery deep

Thank you, Jack Daniels, Old Number Seven,
Tennessee whiskey's got me drinkin' in heaven
I know I can't stay here to long
Cause I can't go a week without doin' wrong

..."Old Number Seven" promises to be a dirty, sinful example of the Three's remarkable musical prowess and collective penchant for merging traditional and unconventional song structures.
           With the exception of "Old Number Seven," many of the threesome's other songs are centered around drinking and other such sinful themes, many of them anthems for the barroom heroes of the City Earth, such as "Shades"---a relaxed ode to daytime-drinking barflies, played in an old fashioned ragtime and bluegrass spirit. One of my other favorites is the bluesy "Chained to the Couch"---a laid back yet earnest monologue of a regret-ridden individual rendered motionless by his life experiences and all that could have been, with lyrics that promise he ain't got those tears no more. Some of their more upbeat and energetic songs include the smoky "Ten Feet Tall," the impossibly catchy "The Plank," the quickly strummed gunslinger ballad "Bullet," the superb start/stop timing of "Man Tap," the fantastic high-paced jaunt that is "Bangor Mash," and, finally, the shufflin' feet-inducing "Black Irish."
           Individuals knowledgeable of today's old-timey outfits could easily place the Devil Makes Three beside the street performing folk punkers, Hail Seizures; the Northwest nine-piece junk band who call themselves the Dandelion Junk Queens; the fiddlin' and washboard scratchin' and strummin' Blackbird Raum; the punky, countryesque, horn-blowing indie-folk troupe the Pasties; and Philadelphia's gypsy punk radicals Mischief Brew. Although they may each share a mere thread of commonality, some more than others, the Devil Makes Three only touches on their genres like the caress of a feather, a soft summer's wind, or the gentlest of fingertips. And while most of the aforementioned bands restrict themselves solely to the underground, the Devil Makes Three has a fan base that extends from the furthest depths of the underground all the way up to just below the surface crust...which is something that most bands and singer/songwriters would aspire to, as it is a postion that can very possibly afford them the opportunity to reach a wider and more diverse audience. And why should only one genre, lifestyle, or social level get to experience something? Why can't it makes its way to each of us in its own way, without ambition, but instead with the the need to share itself with whomever come who may? Admittedly, that's one of the things I like so much about this trio: they aren't a genre-specific or exclusive band. And that makes them valuable to everybody.
           These three friends and bandmates have indeed come a long way from the time KPIG Radio's Sleepy John ventured into a coffee house one day to find them setting up for a show and, before even hearing them play or so much as listening to a demo, ended up inviting them to be guests on his program. Needless to say, the band's presence had a considerable impact on him, causing him to put their music on regular rotation. No doubt, he must have really seen something in them to have invited them to his show without even so much as hearing one note of their music...and a damn good thing he did, too. 
           If you haven't already listened to the Devil Makes Three, I certainly encourage you to go out and get one of their albums, take it home, light a smoke, pour yourself a generous whiskey, and push the play button. I assure you that it will have many of you waiting with an understandable amount of impatience for their fourth album to hit the streets, for news of their next show in your town, and all before you even reach for the beer chaser. The devil knows, I can hardly wait.

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