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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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About a decade ago, singer-guitarists Jesse Irwin and Justin Brown were both hosting Noiseday Hootenanny open mics at the old Frederick’s Music Lounge. There, a group of regular performers specialized in cuts with wry, off-color lyrics. The honky-tonk group that the two would form from that pool of talent, The Dock Ellis Band, also built its original repertoire on funny songs, working in a lot of verbal interplay with the audience. That they’d wear matching western-cut suits bought at Mexican grocery stores and pack their sets with outlaw country classics made the group all that much sweeter. These days, the group’s ditched the suits, but the blend of amusing covers and originals remains. The players still include Irwin, Brown, bassist Adam Dick, longtime drummer Ryan Adams, and keyboardist Tim Sullivan, who, Irwin says, “we share with everybody. That’s the lineup until someone dies.”
Brown says the band started out with humor at the forefront, playing their trucker songs with a little extra sass. “We weren’t very good for a long time,” he says, “so we relied on being funny. We got in a habit of being funny.”
“If you’re onstage and make a mistake, you just have to laugh about it,” Irwin adds. “What became a defense mechanism became our act.”
If the players have a regret, it’s that they’ve only released one proper album to date, Bad Songs and Waltzes. That could change as early as 2015, as they’re thinking of ways to release a song a month throughout the year.
“If we had more deadlines, we’d write more songs and finish more stuff,” Brown says. After a deadpan pause: “We let things mature slowly.”
Ultimately, though, it’s the Dock Ellis live show that wins the converts.
“We’re most at home doing a long show,” Irwin says. “You can feel what we’re doing. A 45-minute show, we don’t get a chance to talk as much. The longer a show goes, it gives you time to talk till it’s funny.
“Our strategy,” he adds, “is that we want to do no more than one show a month in St. Louis. Make them events, with cool bands and venues. We want to go farther with our band. There’s a market for us, and there’s something good for us in towns like Green Bay and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It’s a big deal when an out-of-town band shows up. The gigs are easier. It’s the path of least resistance up north. And the people care about each other, and they’re not messing things up for one another. I’m from here, and St. Louis is where I want to be. But up there…it’s great for vacations.”
And, it seems, for five-piece honky-tonk bands from St. Louis.
The Dock Ellis Band plays the Livery Company (3227 Cherokee) on Saturday, November 29. For sound clips and more info, visit dockellisband.com.
