Despite Media, Br5-49 Keeps Doing What It’s Doing

Although BR5-49 has been proclaimed the saviors of Nashville’s manufactured country-pop sound, lead vocalist Gary Bennett doesn’t buy into the overwhelming media exposure surrounding the group.

“It’s weird to see everything in print,” he says, dismissing favorable press in high-profile publications such as Rolling Stone, USA Today and Entertainment Weekly with the same diplomacy-be-damned honesty that permeates his band’s gritty brand of honky-tonk music.

“We understand that it just goes along with it all. It isn’t really going to last forever and it’s not all that important, it’s just great advertising.”

But unlike most hype, which rarely delivers on its overblown promises, BR5-49 truly deserves the attention. The quintet derives its country sound from the masters - Hank Williams, Jimmy Horton, Buck Owens - and their stage repertoire pays more than passing homage to the ‘50s and ‘60s. Heck, they even dress the part: string ties, pompadours, overalls.

Don’t call them a revivalist act, though. These boys are songwriters with a distinct flavor. Even “If It’s Wrong,” the latest single from their self-titled debut album, combines the honky-tonk style with country and rock influences and an almost cocky ‘90s confidence.

“We honestly don’t think about anything as much as we think about music and playing and writing,” says Bennett. “It’s weird to us because we’re really not doing anything different. I sing the same songs I was singing since I was a kid. Since all five of us got together and we’re all into it so much, it’s fun. Everything else is a side effect of that.

“We had to realize that early on because we were playing away and all of a sudden we were getting a lot of media without any publicist or record deal or anything. We thought, ‘How are we going to deal with this and what do we have to do to keep it going?’ We didn’t want to screw it up, so we figured the only thing to do was keep showing up and playing your best.”

The band inadvertently caught the collective eyes and ears of country music moguls while playing nightly sets at Robert’s Western World, a Western wear store doubling as a hole-in-the-wall bar in Nashville’s glitzy downtown area. In the store window, which is also the stage, the band cranked out cover after cover and an original or two for $15 a night, plus tips.

Word got around, the local media got wind of it and the boys became the unsigned band to see. A trip to Nashville wasn’t complete until you witnessed the quirky country group that played in the store window. Then Tim DuBois, president of Arista Nashville, home of mega-platinum country acts Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn, stopped by. Suddenly, BR5-49 was the quirky country group signed to one of the most successful major labels in Nashville.

In typical Nashville cloning fashion, other labels are looking at the boys, waiting to see if they strike it rich so they can crank out their own version of the band.

“Right now (the industry) is at a conjuncture because somebody has to take the responsibility to step out there and try something new,” he says. “Even though it seems like it could be Tim DuBois or BR5-49, it ain’t really us. We were already doing what we were doing and Tim DuBois saw it but nothing is going to happen to change anything unless radio people take a chance on it.

“Country radio in the last 10 years has become bigger than rock radio for the first time since Elvis came out,” he adds. “It’s a cold, hard fact and these guys, these program directors, all have numbers over their heads. Numbers from the last quarter to live up to and the last five years to live up to, and it’s naive to tell you they will play something because they like it when there are all these other factors involved. They have families at home, they have car payments, there are not very many maverick radio programmers out there.”

Which feeds the creative standstill of the genre. Back in the ‘80s, when country music had become pop schmaltz thanks to adult contemporary-styled hits by Kenny Rogers, Anne Murray and Crystal Gayle, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam and Ricky Van Shelton came along with a rawer, countrier sound that created a movement toward artistic integrity. A decade later, country is slipping back into mediocrity.

“It becomes homogenized,” Bennett says. “These radio programmers are always saying they need Nashville to send up something new, but when you send them something new, they are scared to death of it. My point in all of this is nothing’s going to happen real fast.”

But major-label support for acclaimed acts like Junior Brown, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Iris Dement and Johnny Cash’s comeback on rap-rock producer Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label gives Bennett hope.

“Radio - and whoever else needs to - will understand that there is all this diversity, and just like in rock music, there’s room for it in the market and on radio,” he says. “That’s what’s going to affect us and Junior and Jimmie Dale and all them people. It’s good timing for all of this because country music fans and record buyers are fed up with having the same thing shoved down their throat and are actively seeking something else.”