Brave New World

Raised on a cattle ranch in Buffalo Valley, a rural country community in southeast Oklahoma, it was small-town isolation that inspired JD McPherson to make something more of his life. Together with the western swing and hillbilly music of his home state, like most, it was his family's record collection that shaped his formative years. His father grew up in Alabama and was inspired by the local blues scene, which later morphed into an interest in jazz through his time in the army. For his older brothers it was Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. As his own tastes developed, he became studious, sourcing music from Ramones, Iggy & The Stooges and Black Flag through articles he had read in Spin magazine, which he purchased from the local store, which was an hour commute away. He too was caught in the grunge wave of the early-'90s and formed punk bands with his classmates. “When I was first becoming interested in rock music it was what my brothers were listening to,” he says. “It was heavy classic rock kind of stuff. Then I became more interested in punk-rock music.”

His time in punk bands was short lived, but for McPherson it was much more than a gesture of teenage rebellion. Ramones and The Clash became his gateway to discovering a seemingly infinite supply of music, much of which he draws heavily from today. “The Clash were interested in everything,” he says. “Every album they made, they had a new resource that they tapped in to, whether it was reggae music, beat poetry, like the collaborations they did with Allen Ginsberg, the rockabilly stuff or even the hip hop that started to creep into their recordings during the 1980s. They were a huge inspiration on me, particularly Joe Strummer. I've always had an appetite for '50s R&B but I've always soaked up everything that I could get my hands on.” 

Hanging around record stores, McPherson did just that, trawling through crates of vinyl making life-changing discoveries. Known by staff as a regular, a shop attendant at a downtown McAlester store stumbled across a Buddy Holly recording in the clearance bin and recommended it to a young McPherson. “Hearing the Buddy Holly Decca recordings was basically everything I loved about Ramones but in a more identifiable, textural, pleasing package. It hit a little closer to home. It seemed fun, enthusiastic and a new thing to become infatuated with.”

The infatuation led McPherson on a path to find like-minded musicians and form his own band, and in 2010 he released his debut album, Signs & Signifiers. Steeped in early rock'n'roll tradition, McPherson was cautious of making what he refers to as a time-machine recording. “I didn't want it to be a nostalgia piece,” he says of merging his influences. “I wanted to take everything that I loved about rock'n'roll music and use it as a forum that I enjoy writing with.”

Together with his songwriting, the recording process matches McPherson's vintage approach to music, recording the album at Hi-Style, the Chicago studio in producer/upright bassist Jimmy Sutton's attic. Recorded to a 1960s Berlant quarte-inch tape machine through vintage microphones and all analogue equipment, he is elated with the end result. “It's all radio-quality analogue gear from the early 1950s and '60s,” he says, of Sutton's equipment. “During that time, the military were sinking millions of dollars into the research and development of audio, so it was a really good time for audio.”

Despite the elaborate equipment, the recording process was anything but. “It was putting folks in a ring together without headphones and finding a groove. It's a very interesting way to perform because you play and the engineer has basically mixed it already because of the microphone placement. You go into the control room, listen back to your tape and it's pretty close to what you're going to hear on the finished record. It's like instant gratification,” he laughs.

Along with Fats Domino, Little Richard and Buddy Holly, surprisingly Wu-Tang Clan were an influence on the album, with McPherson's adaptation of Tiny Kennedy's Country Boy subtly referencing the East Coast hip hop crew. “We were speaking about arranging the song differently to the original recording that Tiny Kennedy did,” McPherson continues. “We had talked about how I was a fan of '90s hip hop and Raekwon and RZA and the rest of Wu-Tang guys. They had this really nice sound where they had these organic piano sounds and loops that would drift in and out so we wanted to go for that idea, but on live instruments. We basically had three ideas, so we played them over and over as if it was a hip hop sample or a loop but with a rhythm and blues beat and our equipment.” 

McPherson also holds a Master's Degree in Fine Arts. Up until recently, he was a middle school art teacher at a private school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before being made redundant due to cost cutting. In a fortunate twist of fate, it allowed him to focus more on his music and granted him the opportunity to tour outside of America. “The album had been done and there was some interest from a couple of little festivals in Spain and Germany and so I said, 'Let's try and make a little money while I'm trying to find a job'. It was perfect timing. I lost my job and three months later I was touring and have never stopped.”

Since picking up a guitar at 13, McPherson has dedicated himself to his artistic endeavors. Now 35, his self-drive and motivation have been rewarded with a series of fortunate events; stumbling across Buddy Holly recordings, losing his teaching job and perhaps the highest blessing, performing a Chuck Berry cover in front of the man himself. “I was completely a nervous wreck, I had to do two Chuck Berry covers in front of Chuck Berry,” he gushes, of performing at a Cleveland tribute night for the rock'n'roll pioneer in October 2012. “It wasn't just him, there were tonnes of people that I was fan-boying out on. David Johansen of New York Dolls, Darryl McDaniels from Run DMC, Lemmy from Motorhead – 15-year-old me was freaking out!”

GOOD ALL ROUNDER

Signs & Signifiers made waves in the local rockabilly scene at the time of its release, but it wasn't until 2012 that things went global when esteemed label Rounder Records re-released the album. The Massachusetts-based company, founded in 1970 to specialise in roots music, has an extensive catalogue that boasts over 3,000 titles including Woody Guthrie, Eddie Bo, Ween, Willie Nelson and their latest signing, Tom Jones. Not confined to genre specifics, the label works with folk, blues, country, Celtic, rockabilly and reggae artists, amongst others. McPherson, a self-confessed music nerd, says his decision to sign with the label was simple. “There were two reasons I knew Rounder was the place I wanted to go. The first was their back catalogue. They had historically revived so many amazing musical recordings that were hugely important but hadn't really been heard by a lot of folks. They would even play with reggae and rocksteady music. When I saw Alton Ellis on their roster, I was like, 'Wow, that's pretty hip'. A lot of people that are into rock'n'roll, soul music and all that kind of stuff don't really see a parallel between Jamaican music and rock'n'roll, but I definitely do and so does Rounder. The other reason was some of the artists on their roster have been with them for many, many years. They are sort of a career label and allow you to have some space. There's not an intense amount of pressure to hit numbers, it's more about making good records.”

On the surface, Rounder Records is an independent label, but digging deeper, they have the resources of the largest music company in America at hand. In 2010, the label was purchased by the Concord Music Group, a sub-branch of Village Roadshow and distributed by Universal Music. McPherson's music is now on the world map and he is very much reaping the benefits. The second time around, Signs & Signifies has seen him perform on Conan, Letterman and Leno, the video for single North Side Gal has amassed over one million views on YouTube, and he is now an internationally touring artist.

JD McPherson will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 30 March - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 31 March to Monday 1 April - Bluesfest, Byron Bay NSW
Wednesday 3 April - The Basement, Sydney NSW