Photo by Charlie Pearce.
“I personally think it’s the strongest one I’ve done and I’d like to think I am growing as a writer and I’m really proud of it.”
Erika Wennerstrom, now based in Austin, Texas, is the musician behind the Heartless Bastards, who have just released their sixth album. By Brian Wise
I
don’t think I could ever forget the first time I saw Erika Wennerstrom’s group The Heartless Bastards. It was in the small town of Marfa in far West Texas - an artistic community that has become increasingly popular - during my first visit to what has become one of my favourite festivals, Trans-Pecos. Normally taking place at the El Cosmico campground a kilometre or so out of town, proceedings had to be moved into the town centre and held under a huge shelter next to the railway tracks after a savage rainstorm washed out the camp site. As The Heartless Bastards launched into ‘Simple Feeling,’ from their 2012 album Arrow, a freight train roared past with all of its 130 or so box cars making a deafening racket. After it passed and the song finished, Wennerstom revealed that the same thing had happened a week earlier when they played in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Spooky!
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“It was literally the same song and a train going by during that song,” recalls Wennerstom, who sings, plays guitar and writes the songs. “We played somewhere in New Mexico. I want to say it was in Santa Fe, and a train went by during the same song. What are the odds of that happening?” That was nine years ago, and it still lives in the memory. Since then, Wennerstrom has moved from Ohio to Austin, released a solo album, Sweet Unknown (2018) and recorded two more albums with the band - the latest of which, A Beautiful Life, the first since 2015, is the finest and most accessible to date. Co-produced by Wennerstrom and Kevin Ratterman (Strand Of Oaks, Jim James, White Reaper), A Beautiful Life finds Wennerstrom with a line-up consisting of guitarist Lauren Gurgiolo (Okkervil River),
