ALL HEART

“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.”

Photo by Charlie Pearce.

Erika Wennerstrom, now based in Austin, Texas, is the musician behind the Heartless Bastards, who have just released their sixth album.

By Brian Wise

Idon’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! “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),

drummer Greggory Clifford (White Denim), multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler (Mercury Rev, Midlake), keyboardist Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), guitarist David Pulkingham (Patty Griffin), and longtime Heartless Bastards bassist Jesse Ebaugh. “I’ve been through a couple of iterations of the band,” explains Wennerstrom, “but I had this same team for the last 10 years and when we all talked about taking a hiatus, I thought, ‘Well, that’s fine and it makes sense that people would want to do that here and there.’ But I got really inspired and I did this album under my own name called Sweet Unknown. Then just as the way things have been unfolded, it’s just working out a little different. Like Jesse wanted to concentrate on some of his own songwriting and a solo project. He’s wonderful, but our styles are so different, and I think that it wouldn’t have meshed together, trying to combine in the same band. Really, I guess I just want to keep it that way, at least as far as directing the sound. Just things are working out a bit different. The door is open, but it’s just timing, and because it’s always been my project. I felt that I can reach a lot more people with this name I’ve worked with for so long. I guess it’s going on 20 years actually.” The album title, named after the song ‘A Beautiful Life’, is rather optimistic given the turbulent times we have been going through. “That was the first song I wrote after I finished my solo album,” says Wennerstrom. “I had been playing it in an acoustic version for a couple of years here or there, even during my solo sets so these songs weren’t composed during COVID, and in all honesty, I’ve barely written anything in the last year and a half. “I mean, I usually take a little time to decompress but I guess I’m just not feeling inspired in a way. As far as ‘A Beautiful Life’, I feel like life can be challenging sometimes and I think just one thing that I try to be conscious of is the glass is empty, the glass is half full, that concept of perspective and how to look at things. I think I can get in negative thinking patterns sometimes. “A lot of that message in that song is just a reminder of that because, I don’t know, sometimes if I’m in a time or phase or period of my life or a day or moment, I forget that. I just have to remind myself that if I can look for things to be grateful for and the positive sides of things, it can really rewire my just general thinking patterns. I’m aiming for that. I still have my days.” Some people obviously see the glass as half full and some see it as half empty. I tell her that I like to ask how much is in the bottle next to the glass! “Oh, yeah,” she laughs. “Depending on the perspective, how much is in it is a good or a bad thing. Either somebody’s having a really good time or tomorrow might hurt.” The new album starts with the song ‘Revolution,’ with references to Big Brother. Was it inspired by recent events? “I don’t feel as much as it’s political,” replied Wennerstrom. “Really, a lot of the words in the song are more just about being a good human being. It’s just about commercialism and how we’re sold the idea constantly that we need these things that we really don’t. We’ve got some real issues with our environment right now. I think if we don’t rethink the constant consumption of things and we just exhaust our resources, what that’s going to mean in the long run. It’s not really a political song. I feel like, well, in America, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, these issues are a bit more universal. “It was sort of trying to remember that idea of pure love and try to maintain that sense of inner child in ourselves. Actually, when I wrote ‘A Beautiful Life’, I was in Wisconsin. I went up there to this old monastery that some friends of mine happened to take over. I went out to this little event that was in the town and there was this band playing and there was this little girl standing in front of the stage. She was dancing and spinning around in circles and falling down. I was thinking there’s a point where you get to a certain age and you worry that people are watching you or something.” A Beautiful Life also has a lot of musical contrasts. There seems to be two musical sides to Wennerstrom’s personality. Certainly, it seems the most accessible album that the band has made. “I personally think it’s the strongest one I’ve done,” she agrees, “and I’d like to think I am growing as a writer and I’m really proud of it. That makes me feel good that you said that because maybe you and other folks will feel the same way. With this creative thing, I just do my best to write songs that I believe in and then I just hope other folks do too.” ‘The Thinker’, a slow burning song that closes the album, is another of the songs that get under your skin and invites repeated listening. Its haunting atmosphere is matched by equally ethereal lyrics. “I did it all for love and I’d do it again,” intones Wennerstrom. “Well, ‘The Thinker’, it summed up a lot of the album,” says Wennerstrom, “and there’s more of that message of just following your heart. It was like summing up my life in a sense, and a bit of the journey so far. I’ve done a lot of work on rejecting that feeling with that consumerism and just working on how to make myself happy from the inside versus external sources. That goes for writing songs and just taking leaps and doing things. I went down to the Amazon and I did some plant medicine. I just have taken some leaps to connect with myself in that way. “Then I sing in there, “I did it all for love, and I’d do it again, and I’m not like the pharaohs or rulers of kingdoms. I just need love.” I don’t think money is what drives me. I think I realised that we’re never exactly where we want to be because then we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. It’s like you can set goals for yourself, whether it’s for something you’re wanting to achieve or whatever it is, but whenever you get to wherever that may be, then there’s just a new goal. I realised that as far as material possessions and things like that. Because of that, I don’t think we, as humans, are made to be just satisfied, if that makes sense. There’s a point where when we have our needs of basic needs, the real happiness goal is more something I internally strive for.” “I also sum up that in ‘A Beautiful Life’,” continues Wennerstrom. “To me, that statement of the name of the album was this idea that we should all ask ourselves that question like, ‘What does it take? What do we need to have a beautiful life?’ I think, ultimately, we know it’s not the external material world. I just want to continuously remind myself of that. It’s nice to be comfortable too. I don’t mean that I wouldn’t have certain things I would like or comforts, but they just won’t ever define me or my value as a human being.”

A Beautiful Life is available from September 10 via Sweet Unknown Records/Thirty Tigers/Cooking Vinyl Australia.