The sound comes from influences as diverse as Black Flag, Hunter S. Thompson, Motörhead, ZZ Top, The Coasters and Bruce Springsteen.
The name comes from Walt Whitman — “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
The band comes from Denver.
Colorado-based rock trio The Yawpers are slated to play their first Bainbridge Island concert at the Treehouse Café at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18. Tickets, $15 each, are on sale now via www.treehousebainbridge.com (21-and-older only).
The Yawpers — Jesse Parmet, Alex Koshak and frontman Nate Cook — traffic in multi-styled raucous rock-and-roll, a heady blend of Americana, punk and blues sometimes called “cow-punk.” They tour extensively and have played shows with Delta Spirit, The Reverend Horton Heat, The Black Angels, Wanda Jackson, Supersuckers and The Blasters, among others.
Their work has been praised by the likes of Nerdist, Consequence of Sound, the A.V. Club and even Rolling Stone, who said of their song “Burdens” that, “the guys bang out a Springsteen-worthy tribute to escaping the city limits of one’s hometown.”
Fans of the Showtime series “Ray Donovan” may recognize them, as “Doin’ It Right” was featured in the end credits of the 10th episode in season five’s “Bob the Builder.”
After two self-released albums, The Yawpers put out “American Man” in 2015 with Bloodshot Records, who also released their latest, 2017’s “Boy in a Well,” a concept album that tells the story of a boy in France during World War I who was abandoned in a well by his mother.
Cook recently chatted with the Review about the upcoming Lynwood show, the story behind “Boy in a Well,” and why even old school-style rockers should spend less time looking backward.
* This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
BIR: You guys have a variety of influences and your music’s been described a bunch of different ways. Do you give a lot of thought to genre or style or do you just kind of put it together and see if you like it?
NC: We like a variety of styles, so I guess in that sense we put some time into it. But as far as what try to make … we just kind of do what we like and what we think sounds good.
BIR: I understand you’ve never played on Bainbridge before, is that right?
NC: This will be our first time; we’re pretty excited. We have a pretty strong enclave in Seattle so hopefully it’ll translate across the water.
BIR: Does the size of the venue adjust your setlist or plan of attack going into a given show?
NC: We try and play the show we’re going to play. The only real difference we’re going to have in a setlist is if we’re headlining or if we’re opening, and that’s just really length. But as far as what we’re actually going to do there’s really not a whole lot of variability due to room size.
BIR: I imagine you’ll be playing a lot from “Boy in a Well.”
NC: That’s the most recent one. We have a new one coming out soon, so we’re kind of on the tail end of supporting that album, but we are still touring on it and still very proud of it.
BIR: That’s a concept album, which is not something that you see, I feel, as often as you used to — at least not an expressly identified “concept album” with a corresponding story and all. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about?
NC: Personally as a writer I guess in some ways I wanted to give myself a challenge, but in other ways I wanted to give myself a framework. Sometimes it’s easier to write in a narrative format than it is to kind of just pull stuff out of the ether. So I kind of thought it would be an interesting exercise and I think we did OK at it.
[The story] was just something that came to me. I was popping Dramamine on a plane and I think I took too many and I had a bizarre transcendental experience, and the whole thing kind of came to me at once. Not to give it too much weight or pomp, but that was kind of how it came about.
BIR: That might be the safest mind-altering substance inspiration story I ever heard from a musician.
NC: Well, frankly I was also drinking quite a bit as well, so…
BIR: Ah, there we go. The A.V. Club said something interesting about you guys, that you were “a road trip across a psychedelic wasteland, though they skew a little more Hunter S. Thompson than Jim Morrison.” What do you think they meant by that and is it a compliment?
NC: I would assume that they mean that we’re less imagery and metaphor-oriented, or a little less about waxing poetic, than Jim Morrison and a little bit more on the gritty side, at least trying to attain some sense of realism, which would be a little bit closer to Hunter S. Thompson. I think that’s pretty accurate. I love the The Doors, but I’ve always thought Jim Morrison was kind of a douche. Frankly, I’ve always felt similarly about Hunter S. Thompson, but to a lesser extent. But I think that’s pretty accurate. Just by virtue of having a concept album, and one that’s as dark as we did, we began to draw some psychedelic comparisons, but I tried to write as believable a story as I could within the framework of a totally unbelievable story.
BIR: Typically, do you find yourself starting with music and then searching for lyrics or is it the other way around?
NC: On “Boy in a Well” it definitely started lyrically or at least concept-wise, but it changes album to album. With the album we have coming up soon it was definitely more music-first.
BIR: What are your impressions of the Northwest music scene in terms of the ebb and flow of Americana and neo-folk music’s popularity? Where are we now, what’s going on?
NC: Well, we’re based out of Denver and it’s a very different scene, I would imagine, than Seattle. But I think there are trends that go across the states. Folk music and Americana always has these dips and resurgences. Ten years ago it was dead, and then it came back for a while, for better or worse, with some bands like The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons. Then it dipped again and it kind of came back with Nathaniel Rateliff for a while. It’s always cyclical, and people always want to like the thing that was popular right before they became tastemakers. So I think it’s kind of natural for things to fall out of vogue and then quickly come back into vogue, especially in the information age. Trends change so quickly now, those cycles take a lot less time.
It’s hard for me to answer this question because we’re not popular enough to be able to say that we fit into a scene or that it’s helped or impeded our careers. But I would say we have a strong and loyal fanbase. I don’t know if that’s in spite of or because of trends, but I’m happy that we have it.
BIR: Because you have somewhat styled yourself after bygone inspirations, do you ever become weary or exasperated with some of the stuff that comes with being a musician today, like the social media management and constant branding? Thinking, “Johnny Cash never had to do this.”
NC: There’s give and take on that, too. I hate doing social media, but at the same time, by the same token, is it really that big of a sacrifice to make to make your fans feel included in the process? And I also think comparing yourself to artists in the past is the quickest way to become cynical, jaded and also to lack the motivation to make something work in the current
circumstances. It’s always easier to look back and say it used to be better than it is to look forward and make it better.
BIR: Do you ever look at your career retrospectively and think, “Oh, that struggle or disappointment did sort of ultimately happen for a reason?”
NC: I guess it depends what you mean by a “a reason.” I’m not a fatalist in any sense, so I don’t think of it in those terms. But I do see that there are subconscious arcs in my career where I was mirroring my personal life and my personal growth through my art in ways I wasn’t aware of at the time.
BIR: But you don’t sound too concerned about the idea of a legacy.
NC: I wouldn’t say that. I’m an artist and whatever anybody tells you every artist craves and desires validation, so in that sense obviously I’m looking for a legacy in some sense. I would like to matter to some degree. I don’t want to go to my grave and wind up having made no impact on the world. But, that being said, it’s also not something that I spend a whole lot of time thinking about. I’m moment-to-moment, I guess, in that way.
Visit www.theyawpers.com to learn more about the band, news about the imminent new album and additional tour dates and locations.
