(Credit: Reid Stone)
As far as Campbell Brown can remember, there’s been one person over the last two years who recognized the rare guitar he plays: Gibson’s modernist take on jazz hollow-bodies, the tragically named Vegas Highroller.
“He came up to me and said, ‘That’s a Vegas! I’ve been looking for that everywhere,’” Brown says. “He was actually seeing if he could buy it, but it’s like, ‘No, it’s not leaving my hands.’ I can’t put it down.”
Brown, 34, found the Gibson online and puts it to good use in the Folly Beach rock ‘n’ roll band he fronts, Gaslight Street. The group, which includes bassist Frank Nelson, keyboardist Whitt Algar and drummer Jack Friel, writes material ranging from roadhouse grind (“98 Blues”) to Bad Company smoothness (“Constantly Running”).
In February, Gaslight released “Idle Speed,” recorded on two-inch analog tape at Ocean Industries, Shinedown bassist Eric Bass’ Charleston studio.
Right now, Brown is standing in the gravel parking lot of James Island Business Park, a warehouse where Gaslight will record some new songs this weekend. He says the track “Black as Coal” particularly benefited from the warmth tape imparted to the “Idle Speed” session.
“That one has slide on it and the vocals are really up front and you can hear the hiss of the tape in there too, which is cool. I know a lot of modern radio station people wouldn’t like that, but that was what we were going for.”
What’s the last thing that made you want to write some new lyrics?
Just changes in my life. Last summer, I went through a divorce and had a bunch of stuff happen then and some interesting days after that.
Break-up albums are usually good.
Yeah, it’s still coming. That’s going to be an EP. I don’t know when we’re going to release that because he just came out with this new one.
Who’s an artist you don’t think gets enough credit for having soul?
I don’t know. Everyone I listen to gets a lot of credit for it, like Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and that whole melting pot of soul and blues musicians.
Sure. But somebody that comes to my mind as normally not being credited in that way is David Bowie. Who else doesn’t get enough credit for having soul?
Yeah, yeah. Modern era, I’d say Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. People talk about his songwriting, but I think he has a lot of soul.
I saw online you guys just played Checkpoint Charlie’s in New Orleans.
Most of us didn’t sleep. We played until about three in the morning on a Tuesday night, and people were still coming in the bar. It was pretty crazy. We’re used to ending at 12:30 or 1 on a Tuesday. A friend of ours, this girl, put us up in her hotel. We were kind of bar hopping after that in the French Quarter. I don’t even remember the names of them. Not to sound like an idiot, but it was kind of blurry. (Laughs.)
Understandable, New Orleans is a blurry town. So how much does a reel of two-inch tape cost nowadays?
I want to say like $200 per reel. There are 15 or 16 minutes, something like that, on a reel. So we used one reel and we would record however many takes we could on it, usually two or three, and after that we’d have to dump it all off the reel, erase it all and get it back into position and record again. So it was a process.
So you dumped those tracks into Pro Tools to mix them?
Yeah.
Since you live in Folly Beach, I was wondering if you surf.
I do.
Got any shark stories?
Haven’t seen any around here, although I know they’re out there. I’ve seen them in Gulf Shores—we were down there during our tour—a bunch of bull sharks. We were all out wading in the water, and I saw a shadow, called it out and everyone kind of laughed. But I got out of the water and looked at it and it was an eight-foot shadow. Everyone else got out and looked at it, and it turned out there were three or four bull sharks circling us. So I’m glad I saw that thing.
The lyrics in the Gaslight song “Constantly Running” talk about looking for your stash. What’s a funny place you used to hide your stash?
Usually it’s in my guitar case, which is probably pretty stupid.
What sort of events inspired your song “Black and Blue Sativa”?
Our bass player wrote that and he’s referencing the drug you can buy in head shops. But I think it’s about some crazy girl he used to hang out with and he used a lot of metaphors from that drug.
Most embarrassing album or concert ticket purchase you’ve ever made?
I saw some terrible country show, Big & Rich. (Laughs.)
What have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been digging into the Black Keys a lot. The last one, “Brothers.”
As the Black Keys have blown up, it seems like they’ve been able to keep their core audience, while it seems like as King of Leon got huge a lot of the original KOL fans jumped ship. Why do you think that is?
I think the Black Keys are still exploring their genre, which starts in roots and blues music and even has some R&B and hip-hop in it, whereas King of Leon their foundation is more garage-y rock. Where are you going to go from there? They’ve got a good sound, but it’s just tough to keep expanding that. I guess how they’ve expanded it is by turning it into arena rock, which is kind of the opposite of garage.
Gaslight Street plays Downtown Alive 5:30 p.m. April 21. The show is free. For more information, call 864-467-5741 or visit www.gaslightstreet.com.
