Paul Janeway's Late Southern Grandpa Tried To Bring A Gun Into A Broken Bones' Show

"I think to make good art you have to make yourself vulnerable," Paul Janeway of St Paul & The Broken Bones opines. "I think as much as there's so much commerce involved with this, for me, it's still an artistry and that's how I view it." 

Janeway's initial intention during the creation of Young Sick Camellia, the latest album by St Paul & The Broken Bones, was to compose a trilogy of EPs exploring his Southern roots, with the first written about his own experience, while the second and third instalments would focus on the perspectives of his father and grandfather respectively. Once songwriting sessions started, however, Janeway realised he couldn't explore all that he wished to within just four or five songs. 

"My papa was tough, very tough and didn't say things like, 'I love you,' or things like that," he explains. "It was just one of those relationships a, you know, Southern man kind of relationship and so I always thought the relationship between my father and me was always complicated until I got older... I thought it was fascinating that we had these relationships that, you know, I thought were normal and then I started meeting other people and they were like, 'That is not normal,'" he laughs.

The album features segments from a recorded phone conversation between Janeway and his grandpa, who has since sadly passed away. "What I do love about the record is that he kinda is living in that record, and that's pretty neat," Janeway ponders, before admitting that then losing his grandpa "changed the tone" of Young Sick Camellia, adding, "It did feel a little bit like fate."

Considering Janeway's grandpa didn't realise his time was almost up, there's a particularly eerie section where he almost jokes about needing to work out who gets what in his will. "It was pretty wild," Janeway agrees. "I mean, that was a weird part of the conversation... He's like, '[imitates his grandpa] Hey, I dunno how long I got, da-da-da-da...' but it was really bizarre, yep. I was in a parking lot, we were opening up for Hall & Oates and I recorded that phone conversation [laughs]." 

His laugh is uproariously loud and contagious, and we can't help but wonder whether Janeway's grandpa was a Hall & Oates fan. "No!" (There's that riot of a laugh again.)

When asked whether his grandpa ever watched him perform, Janeway sighs as if to collect himself before revealing, "He saw me at the Ryman [Auditorium]. He lived in Lebanon, Tennessee, which is a small town outside of Nashville... I had to say, 'Look, there's the one show I want you to come to' – there were two nights at the Ryman and, haha, I had to beg 'im. And my dad picked 'im up and he eventually came. He unfortunately tried to bring a gun into the venue, which, where he's from that's not - you bring guns to stuff, like, that's what you do. That is not legal; they didn't allow guns in the venue and so he was very upset. And he apparently had a bunch of knives on 'im as well so he had to put those up in his car, haha.

"And after the show that's all he could tell me is about his guns and them not lettin' 'im bring his guns in. Nothing about my performance, it was about the guns and so I was like, 'Well, I expected that to go exactly how it went.'"

So did his grandpa dress up for the occasion? Janeway erupts into hysterics. "He had his work jacket on. He was a mechanic all his life so they had to force 'im to retire and he just, you know, he never went on vacations; he worked every day of his life and that's who he was.

"We play the Ryman Thursday: we're doing Thursday and Friday night, and it's the first time I've played it since he was there, and so that's gonna be - I'm trying not to think about it, but I think that's gonna be pretty powerful." 

Bruised Fruit, the last song on the album, is one that Janeway says he "was havin' trouble gettin' through". "I've gotten better at it now 'cause I've sang it so much, but every once in a while it'll hit me and I'll have to be like, 'Alright, you gotta get through this'... It is hard to be that vulnerable in front of 2,000 people, you almost feel naked in a way."

But fortunately St Paul & The Broken Bones also have plenty of "fun songs" to perform and Janeway stresses, "For me, any good show should have an array of emotions: it should take you from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows."