When
Flyover,
the fourth album from Des Moines-based Brother Trucker, sees the
light of day - maybe yet this summer - the band's fans will be
treated to a collection of timeless roots rock.
Which is a good thing, because the songs were recorded more than three years ago.
"We've had so much go on since we recorded it, just within everybody's personal life," said singer/songwriter/guitarist Andy Fleming. He had a second child. Bassist Lyle Kevin Hogue had his first child. Guitarist Mike Fitzpatrick got married.
Plus, "we're not on any label right now," Fleming said. Brother Trucker had been on Dave Zollo's Iowa City-based Trailer Records, but it no longer exists, and with it went the band's infrastructure for mixing, mastering, and distributing its music.
"Those connections weren't really there for us to use," said Fleming, who grew up in the Quad Cities. Even though Flyover's songs were tracked in February 2005, the record didn't even get mixed until this past spring. Fleming jokingly called it the Iowa version of Chinese Democracy, although he chafed at being called its Axl Rose.
The band has been busy - recording instrumental tracks for an independent movie titled Becoming Eduardo while maintaining a schedule of roughly eight shows a month - but Flyover has remained on the shelf.
Brother Trucker still hasn't decided to go the label or DIY route with Flyover, but when the band closes Friday night's festivities at River Roots Live in downtown Davenport, they'll most likely offer the audience a sneak peak at a few songs on the album.
The full Flyover experience will have to wait until the record actually gets released. As Fleming noted, the band looks at the collection of songs as a whole. "We generally like to perform them together," he said. "We've kept it really fresh that way, because it's one story."
Fleming called it the narrative of Bonita and Billy - characters who each get a song named after them - but the larger subject is the people of middle America.
The songwriter appears to like to rescue characters - or at least their dignity. He's amazingly empathetic, and the record grew from that instinct.
"The story of Bonita was actually a short story I read online," Fleming said, adding that he doesn't remember the source. "It was like a story you could add to if you wanted to. ... I really hated the way this person described this woman Bonita. I thought about her as a young person, and as soon as I thought about that, some of the other characters ... came out of that.
"She was a prison guard, working at Mitchelville prison, and they talked about how ill-fitting her uniform was ... making fun of her," he said, "and I thought, 'Aw, screw that.' I wanted to talk about her as a person, as a little girl."
The result: "Bonita was a big-boned girl / She was jackrabbit fast / She could throw a hard ball like a boy / Just like the way her daddy showed her how."
The language here isn't elegant, but it feels authentic to the rural vernacular.
That's not to say that Fleming doesn't write pretty.
The lead track, "Downtown," showcases his talent for elliptical clarity, and his interest in forgotten people: "He lives downtown / On the cold hard ground / Since his folks found out / He lives downtown."
The song never uses the word "gay," but Fleming doesn't need it. He works with minimal, essential detail to tell his stories: "The arresting officer / Familiar with the situation / Picked him up the day before / At a notorious location."
That verse is also exemplary in the casual cadence of the language, as Fleming gently arranges the syllables and doesn't impose anything on them that wasn't already there.
The record is generally laid-back, although "The Friday Night Fight" is Johnny Cash crossed with punkish rockabilly. The band will remind many people of the Heartland rock of Mellencamp, and the detailed Americana of Springsteen, but the best comparison might be calling Brother Trucker the Iowa equivalent of the Drive-by Truckers.
It's probably no accident that Brother Trucker has become friends with drummer Brad Morgan of the Drive-by Truckers, and the Des Moines outfit hopes to record with him soon. While the songs of Morgan's band live in the South and Fleming's are set in Iowa, the Brother Trucker leader sees the similarities: "We're all writing about people."
Brother Trucker will perform on Friday, August 22, at River Roots Live's side stage in downtown Davenport. The set begins at 10:15 p.m. Admission to River Roots Live is free.
For more information on the festival, visit RiverRootsLive.com.
For more information on Brother Trucker, visit MySpace.com/brothertrucker.
