Heartless Bastards

One Liner: Bluesy rock goodness

Wikipedia Genre: Blues rock, indie rock, garage rock, country rock
Home:  Cincinnati, OH (maybe now in Austin, sort of?)

Poster Position: 13
Weekend Two Only.

Friday at 2:30 on the LadyBird Stage.

Thoughts:  Thank God.  Finally, something on this poster that I hadn't heard of before but sounds good.  This is some bluesy rock goodness.  Of course, that means that their streaming numbers are a fraction of those I've recently seen for TikTok star emo rappers and whatnot, but I think its more important that at least they got named to this bill and some people can discover these tunes.

The band was initially formed by a woman named Erika Wennerstrom back in 2002, who mainly did all of the instruments herself.  Sounds like one of the Black Keys guys noticed them and they were soon signed to a label.  According to Wennerstrom, the name of the band comes from a question on a trivia quiz game at a bar. A question asked the name of Tom Petty's backing band, and one of the options was "Tom Petty and the Heartless Bastards". She thought it was funny, and used it when she later formed a band.

Interestingly though, when I first listened to the top track, I thought it was a dude doing the singing, not Wennerstrom.  It was only after watching this video that I realized that she is still the one singing, just using her octaves.  The top track, by a good amount, is "Only For You," with 35.9 million streams.

Actually sounds kind of like Wilco at first.  But then the higher octave singing removes that illusion.  Great groove in there though.  And that little jam sesh at the end is wonderful.

Five albums - sounds like the band has been through multiple lineups, with only Wennerstrom as the constant throughout.  2005's Stairs and Elevators, 2006's All This Time, 2009's The Mountain, 2012's Arrow, and 2015's Restless Ones.  I hope they're bringing something new to the table, since that is a six year gap since they last put out any new music.

That first album has a definite rawness to it - you can hear some mistakes here and there in the jam - but its appealing nonetheless.  Almost a Sleater-Kinney sound at times, and the band has a Crazy Horse sound at times ("Pass and Fail" for sure).  I can also see why a Black Keys guy would have been attracted to this band - lots of blues swagger and big riffs.

By 2009's The Mountain, they're a little cleaner.  The title track adds a steel guitar to the mix that sounds pretty good.  And "Had to Go" drops into a pleasant Appalachian banjo/fiddle mix, kind of ominously, which sounds cool.  The top track from this album, and their second-most streamed overall, is the title track with 6.8 million streams.

Pretty good, right?  The album closer is awesome - "Sway" starts to sound like Alabama Shakes to me.  (or maybe Alabama Shakes sounds like "Sway" to me, since this stuff is so old...).  Same with "Low Low Low" from Arrow - I dig the Shakes so much.

2012's Arrow makes me think more of classic rock.  "Got to Have Rock and Roll" sounds straight up like some T Rex track chugging its way towards a Freebird-lite solo that then gains some "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo" vibes.  "Parted Ways" makes me want to go drink whiskey with her near the Rio Grande.  And "Down in the Canyon" comes on like a flash flood and then slinks around a little bit.  Dig it.

I'll admit one shameful moment in here, when my brain went to 4 Non Blondes.  I wish I hadn't thought of them, and I wish for you that you can eliminate that thought from your brain now.  Otherwise, sing it with me "HAAYAAAYYAAAYYYAAYY!  HAAAYYYAAAYYYYAAAYY!  I SAID HAY!  WASGOWANON!!"  I saw them live at La Zona Rosa a million years ago, opening for, maybe Blues Traveler?  Dave Matthews?  Spin Doctors?  Haha, in '93 they toured with Aerosmith.  Can you imagine the Aerosmith bros being like WTF when 4NB cranked up?  Otherwise, Google can't tell me who it was that they opened for.  Even more depressing, what if they were the headliner I went to see back then?  Anyway, this band is way better than 4NB.

By the time you get to 2015's Restless Ones, they're even cleaner, albiet with a little touch of jam rock added to the Southern charm rock sound.  Like, "Black Cloud" is really good, and the mandolin on "Hi-Line" made me purely happy.  "Pocket Full of Thirst" sounds like it could be a Dead cover.  The final song is making me think of some weird Yeah Yeah Yeahs stuff.  Either way, I am really enjoying this album.  "Gates of Dawn" is the most streamed, with 2.5 million.

The band didn't break up after this album - apt title though! - but they all decided to take a break to explore other stuff.  Wennerstrom used that to make a solo album, Sweet Unknown.  Everyone else boogied out to do their own thing as well.  A 2020 piece in the Chronicle mentions that they had released a new track ("Revolutions"), but also calls them "Austin indie curanderos."  So have they moved to Austin?  Also, FYI, a cuandero is a native healer/shaman in Latin America.  I had to look that up.  Huh, this profile says that Wennerstrom lives in Lockhart now.  Cool.  Also says that they finished a new album on March 1, 2020, so I guess we should expect that to show up sooner or later?

Either way, I've enjoyed jamming these albums for a few days.  This is solid stuff.  I'd go check out the live show.