Tonight: The Sour Notes @ Rudyard's

One of our favorite groups to come out of Austin, The Sour Notes, will be hitting up Houston's Rudyard's Pub for the release of their latest LP, It's Not Gonna Be Pretty, with support from Spain Colored Orange and tour mates Row Zero. They kicked off their tour last night in Austin, and will be traversing the south and east coast for the next week-and-a-half. They've loaded up their new (old) van, Jacque, and have willingly committed to reporting back to BOT while on the road. We plan to feature words and pictures from The Sour Notes over the course of their winter tour, so hopefully some crazy adventures pan out.

The other day, I had the chance to have a bit of a discussion with frontman Jared Boulanger about The Sour Notes' latest album and their impending tour. He had tons to say about it all, so feel free to scope the interview, and a listing of their tour dates after the jump.

Well, for me, the main inspiration for a majority of the songs on It's Not Gonna Be Pretty came from interpreting the moods and subject matter in alot of the films I was watching at the time. Many of the the lyrics and even song titles are words and quotes directly from Ingmar Bergman's films for example. It was a very black and white period of writing for me to say the least, which later led to the album art having no color as well.

Is it similar to past works? Or are you branching off into a new direction?

Similar, only in the way that it encompasses everything we've tried to do on previous efforts, but at the same time, reaches into some new 'heavier' territory that fans might not have expected. Most Sour Notes songs have that familiar ring to them that is easy to characterize us by, but I can say that this album is kind of the climax to the territory we've dabbled in thus far, and things are definitely going to change after this.

Jared Boulanger

How was the creation process? Did you write the songs completely, or was it more collaborative as a full band?

Well, being the lyricist in the band, a lot of responsibility and pressure to push a song in a certain direction is on me, and a lot of them we're written alone on just an acoustic guitar (which there isn't a single one of on the entire album), but the song doesn't really develop in a 'performable' way until it gets presented to the band and we vibe off it. Though, my two favorite songs on this album, "Its the Hair That Makes the Dress Chic!" and "A Cute Little Ruin," were sparked from a simple guitar and piano riff that just popped in Chris' head one day. I think he said "Hey, come check out this melody..." Then, we arranged it a bit and flushed it out as a band until it sounded right. That's how things have been happening lately, and I really like how that's been working out.

The Sour Notes

The new line-up featuring Elaine Greer has a much more expanded sound. What brought her into the fold? Is she featured on the new album?

I've always liked to incorporate female vocals into our music, and I'd been a friend and fan of Elaine's for a while before she moved to Austin and when we were getting close to finish the album, I called her up to see if she'd come over and help me come up with some ideas for vocal harmonies. So, we spent about a week getting drunk during the day and recording in my home studio and 'voila!' Some time during that, we asked her to join the band, or she offered.. I can't remember.

Excited about The Sour Notes first tour? Which shows in particular?

Well, actually, this is our second tour... We took a 2-week tour up the East Coast last January on almost an identical route. 'That' being our first experience on the road taught us a lot on how to book and fund a tour by ourselves, how to promote ourselves, make connections in other cities, etc. Even though it was a difficult and hectic task, touring for the first time as an unknown band in new places... It was enough of a success that we wanted to do it again so soon, and preparing for it this time around was so much easier because of that experience.

Have you ever been on tour before with other projects?

No we haven't.... and this is Elaine's first tour too!!! So, hopefully she'll too get the 'bug' after this...

The Sour Notes

Are you playing with any bands of note during your two week trek?

You may have heard of Inoculist (features John Hunter), a former Houstonian, but now living in NYC. We're playing with them at Cake Shop on January 8th, and I'm really excited to see him and his band again. They just put out a 7-inch split with Jana Hunter on Heart Break Beat Records that is really good and you should buy.

What are your means of travel for this tour? Borrowing mommy's mini-van?

Haha, I wish... We just bought a Blue/Grey Dodge Cargo Van from 1986 for a steal and named it Jacque. Since we bought him, we've spent more money fixing him up than he's worth and we still can't afford to fix the heater on him, but hopefully he'll get us through tour and back. Just don't be shocked when all of our pictures and tour diary entries are from various mechanic's shops along the East Coast.

Are you going to be able to handle a diet of McDonald's and Denny's?

We're more of the Whataburger / Waffle House bunch.

Anything else you want to spit about the album or tour? Anything we NEED to know?

It's Not Gonna Be Pretty by The Sour Notes = ALBUM OF THE YEAR

The Sour Notes 2010 Winter Tour

-Eggs