The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer, Centennial Theatre, Friday, Feb. 2, Tickets: $35/$28/$12.
The thing about writing blues songs, performing at blues festivals and winning blues awards is that people have a tendency to expect you to play the blues.
Apocalipstick, the newest album from The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer (harpoon for harmonica, axe for guitar) is almost like the blues.
“When we set out to make this record we felt we didn’t want to be constrained by the blues genre whatsoever,” says Matthew Rogers, the band’s representative axe murderer.
The band that once unintentionally reeled off six straight Willie Dixon songs in concert have put together a reggae-pop-gospel-country album underlain with what Rogers calls “doomsday sort of textures.”
You can hear those textures on “I’m Back,” which kicks off so slowly you expect to watch the wind nudge a tumbleweed across your path before the guitars drop in like invading aliens. If their previous albums were about doing what worked, Apocalipstick is about figuring out what else could work. There are breaks and solos and “intros to songs that are songs in and of themselves,” Rogers says. A riff on the incredibly-titled “Marianne (20,000 Acres of Moonlight)” could’ve been the intro for a Joy Division song. But like Buddy Guy, the band can’t quit the blues. The track “Father’s Son” sounds like it might’ve been cut at Chess Studios.
“We’re just trying to sound more and more like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Rogers explains with a laugh. “Or Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.”
Several album reviews noted the band’s new direction. It’s an assessment that surprised Rogers.
“I don’t think we ever thought it was a big departure,” he says. “We felt like we were just jumping back on where we left off.”
The band is planning to remix a “totally, completely different version of the album,” Rogers promises. “It’s not really bluesy whatsoever.”
There’s something liberating about the switch, the St. Thomas Aquinas grad explains.
“Any time you get defined as being a certain genre, it’s really nice to just break away from that,” he says. The album also offered the band a chance to prove they were more than their genre.
If musical styles were ever pristine and uncontaminated, they aren’t anymore, Rogers notes.
“I think musical purism of styles should just be a thing of the past,” he says. “There’s hardly anyone out there that only listens to country music, or only listens to the blues. Everyone listens to so many different things these days.”
In an era when anyone can stream and store their own infinite playlist it can be difficult for a contemporary band to distinguish themselves.
While The Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer has had their songs in cop shows, werewolf shows, science fiction shows and The Good Wife, “the crossover from that is few and far between,” Rogers says. “People aren’t going to leap out of their seats and be like, ‘What’s that music playing in the background?’”
Lizzie Borden Took An Axe, a Lifetime movie starring Christina Ricci has been the one bloody exception.
“From that one in particular, for some reason, we’ve gained a lot of fans,” Rogers says, noting the regular requests for “Shake It” and “Are You Listening Lord.”
The band faces a similar quandary with Spotify. They use the music streaming service because “you kind of have to,” Rogers says.
“Spotify is generating almost no money for us,” he says. “You’ve got to be pretty massive for Spotify to be doing anything significant for you.”
Still, if it gets more “youngsters” to their shows, it’s worth it, he says.
The band’s next major show is at Centennial Theatre.
It’s a special concert, Rogers says. “Especially for me because I live like three blocks away.”
It’s where he performed when he was in his high school musical. It’s where he saw his sister compete in a dance competition.
“One of those moments where you feel like life is coming – maybe not full circle – but some sort of circle is happening.”
