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Photo courtesy of Earl Burrows
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Photo courtesy of Earl Burrows
While Mark Watrous was playing on tour with the likes of The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes and The Shins, he spent his time on the bus drafting his own lyrics, the idea of a solo project always present in his mind.
“I’d been in bands for years,” Watrous says, “and then had sort of gotten sidetracked into being the utility player, hired on for tours—I’d been doing that for years and eventually realized I had all this material I’d been sitting on and finally started putting together a solo record for my own mental well-being. I figured it was time to do this.”
‘This’ became Earl Burrows, after Watrous met Carson Medders and James Freshwater in the process of piecing together his songs. After Watrous’ brother Joel moved to Nashville and joined the group, the band quickly jelled, setting it apart from Watrous’ previous band experiences.
“Loudermilk and Gosling [bands that Watrous was involved in] were really just collaboratives," Watrous explains. "Davie in Loudermilk would generally write the spark of the song, and then all of us would come in and hang our bells and whistles on it. But, really it didn’t work so well because it ended up being everyone fighting for their own space."
Earl Burrows is a different story. Watrous says, “It’s been much more 'us' in the room deliberately piecing together how each song is going to work - for example, what extra stuff we can strip away so that the things that we want to come out are clearly there.”
This streamlining process is key for Earl Burrows and reflects Watrous’ extensive experience in the music industry. From lyrics to melodies, the songs are carefully crafted to achieve a uniquely modern take on 70s glam rock. Although Watrous struggled to name a band that Earl Burrows sounds like—not a bad problem to have—he noted early David Bowie and Elvis Costello as musical inspirations.
The band works to strike a balance between material that is centered and easily relatable and the more ‘out-of-left-field’ lyrical and compositional choices that they might experiment with in a festival environment.
The name? Definitely on the ‘out-of-left-field’ side of the spectrum. It actually came from a misunderstanding between Watrous and one of his high school art teachers.
“So, I was talking to my art teacher, and I had mentioned the symbol of a snake eating it’s tail," Watrous says. "He told me what it was called, and I misheard him—he’d said ‘ouroboros’ but I heard 'Earl Burrows.' In a stupid 20-something attempt to sound smart, I would throw this name around when I was out, and when I finally saw it written down one day, I had that panicked moment of ‘oh no, what have I been telling people?’” Watrous says, laughing.
Once the group came together in Nashville, Watrous thought the name seemed fitting, leaving whether it was a band or a solo project up in the air. He says, “it had a sort of Pink Floyd idea to it like, ‘Who is Earl?’”
The band’s debut album will be released on September 18, and they’ll be playing almost exclusively songs off the album for LouFest. Right now, Watrous is finishing up album artwork, and the group is in process of making a video for the first single, called “Our Kind.”
On LouFest, Watrous says, “I hope that what we do translates to people. It’s a much different thing playing a large stage to a large crowd than a small club, so I hope we can transcend.”
Earl Burrows performs Sunday, September 13 at 1 p.m. For more information, visit loufest.com.
