INTERVIEW: Flat Duo Jets
- Al Muzer
Plying pretty much the same blues-informed, hillbilly-fueled, moonshine runnin', grunt 'n' grease guitar and drums caterwaul they've resolutely stuck to since In Stereo, Flat Duo Jets' guitarist/pianist/vocalist Dexter Romweber and his drum-bashing pal, Crow, have squirted a few new colors onto the palette for Lucky Eye their ninth official effort and first for Geffen-backed, Scott (R.E.M., Days Of The New and Nirvana, among others, producer) Litt-founded Outpost Recordings.
"I've always missed not having more instruments on our other records," Romweber said during a recent interview. " I like 'duo' stuff. I like it 'live' a lot and there are certain songs that are great to play as a duo - the blues and rock-a-billy tunes - but I've always heard more instruments on our songs - strings, saxes, pianos, all that stuff, than what eventually wound up on the records. The difference with this record is that now, everybody else can finally hear 'em, too!"
Marrying a Santo & Johnny-like instrumental subtlety (check out "New York Studio 1959"), an unobtrusive, but effective horn section (courtesy of the Squirrel Nut Zippers), a swingin' bassist (former dB's leader Chris Stamey), and a lush, 12-piece string section ("I really love strings," Romweber chuckles. "I've been listening to Jackie Gleason records for years.") to the gruff, soulful, rough-hewn minimalism and Brylcream-billy back-ally blasts of classic retro-roots that has come to define the Flat Duo Jets over the years - Lucky Eye co-producers Litt and Stamey have helped Dexter and Crow craft the finest album of the Chapel Hill, North Carolina duo's 14-year career.
"Scott produced all my favorite R.E.M. songs," Romweber said of his new label president. "So I was pretty amazed when he started coming to our shows about two years ago. Pete Buck [R.E.M.] introduced us and said he wanted Scott to meet us because he thought we'd work well together."
"We really wanted to come up with something great for this album because Scott, you know, Scott gave us a chance - besides," he laughs, "I was getting tired of people asking me why we weren't signed [the duo has recorded for Sky, Norton and Dolphin Records while Romweber's 1996 solo effort, Folk Songs, was on Permanent] after all these years. That was frustrating. Anyway, when this opportunity presented itself Crow and I were like, 'Man, we gotta do this and we gotta do it right!' "
"I listened to the album just the other day and it made me pretty happy," Romweber says of -Lucky Eye. "I'm real into it. I really like this record, ya' know? We were just trying to play some real rock 'n' roll."
Featuring 17 loose, warm, relaxed and radiant tracks that ring with an open, authentic, timeless honesty that has absolutely nothing to do with today's pop charts and everything to do with the freedom that comes from playing what feels right, Lucky Eye is just that - "real rock 'n' roll".
"I was thinking just the other night," offers the guitarist when he's asked if life on the road is different now that there's more money behind him, "that, although I thought we'd been around long enough and put out enough records so the promotion behind this album wouldn't need to be much different from what we'd done for the others - it seems that perhaps not as many people as I'd like to think actually got a chance to hear those other records."
"I just wish that after 13 years of doing this I sort'a wish I was a little bit younger now - or, that we were signed to a bigger label earlier on. [sighs] Although this really isn't, ultimately, much different from what we've been doing all along," he adds of the major media push he, Crow, Litt and the label are giving Lucky Eye, "well, except maybe a few more people will hear it this time around."
