JamBase Questionnaire: Southeast Engine

Welcome back to JamBase’s baker’s dozen to the bright lights of the music world. Last time we heard from Luther Russell.

I know things these days are bad
They might take our land, our home
All kinds of worst-case scenarios
But migration it’s a trick and you know I don’t give a lick
I won’t wait ‘til Judgment Day before I’ll see the Devil pay

new album

Switch on the news or just take an honest look out your window and things look pretty grim out there. Hope is harder to generate and hold on to all the time, yet there are glimmers even in this dollar-poor, fence-building year, and Ohio’s Southeast Engine prove expert miners for faith and fortitude even as they face down the new Great Depression (in several senses) by way of the old one on their expertly carved new album, Canary (released March 29 on Misra).

Crying, “Oh sure things could be better…oh, oh, oh, at least we have each other,” this young band barrels into history and makes it breath for today’s inhabitants, telling tales about an Appalachian family living through the original Great Depression. It’s as timely a work as any band has mustered in these turbulent times, and given the subject matter, a real accomplishment that it’s also Southeast Engine’s most flowing, immediately appealing album yet.

Emerging from the Midwest underground in 1999, Southeast Engine has steadily built themselves into a band that should be mentioned in the same breath as Dr. Dog, My Morning Jacket and Drive-By Truckers – i.e. this generation’s top purveyors of reliably excellent, philosophically rich music who deliver the goods live, too. While Southeast Engine hasn’t garnered the same cult audiences as their peers, a record like Canary holds its own against the latest chapters from any of these folks while maintaining the group’s own homespun character. There’s something of church music and back porches to Canary, country-wise inflections inside the sturdy, dynamic rock band they’ve become. Like much of their earlier material, this set manages to be both archetypically rich and sitting-at-your-knee intimate, a broad inflection the band excels at.

Southeast Engine consistently makes thoughtful music but they’ve woven something particular intricate and beautiful on Canary, which may be just the song cycle to help pull some folks through these rugged, future-killing days, a small bird in the mine to warn us all of the perils of hopelessness and a reminder of the great succor of one another’s company and kindness. (Dennis Cook)

Yeah, even the saved are forsaken
So, I’m going back to the Garden
Where the trees are in full bloom
I’m shaking off the ashes of brimstone and doom
I’m gonna pick a thousand apples in a single afternoon

Here’s what Southeast Engine singer/songwriter/guitarist Adam Remnant had to say to our inquiries.

Southeast Engine by Noah Rabinowitz

Nickname: Rem

1. Great music rarely happens without…
Letting go and letting it happen naturally. It’s an old cliché, but I have always found it to be true. With every song I write, I basically have to learn how to write a song all over.

2. The first album I bought was…
MC Hammer’s Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em on cassette

3. The last song or album to really flip my wig was…
Judee Sill’s “Jesus Was a Cross Maker.” As soon as I heard it I had to listen to it on repeat.

4. When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be…
A musician!

5. My favorite sort of gig is…
One where the audience is enthusiastic and attentive at the same time, allowing the band to be dynamic.

6. One thing I wish people knew about me is…
I recently learned how to play claw-hammer banjo.

7. I love the sound of…
The ambience of my neighborhood in Athens, Ohio. It’s a sort of quiet thrill.

8. One day I hope to make an album as fantastic as…
The Band’s The Band and Music From the Big Pink

9. The best meal I ever had on tour was at…
A giant breakfast our friend Liz made us in Seattle on this last tour. It’s great when people cook for you when you are out on the road. Eating out of gas stations and Subways can get pretty old.

10. I always find the coolest audiences in…
New York City and Los Angeles. Southeast Engine has played for some great audiences in smaller towns and cities across the country – I usually cite these towns, but I must say that our recent audiences in NYC and LA have been some of the most welcoming and enthusiastic crowds we have ever had.

11. The worst habit I’ve picked up being on the road all the time is…
Poor dietary decisions after a show – I’m a sucker for a late night snack. I’m especially prone to ice cream – Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia is my all-time favorite.

12. Led Zeppelin or Radiohead, which flips your switch the most and why?
I’ll have to go with Radiohead. I really like the melodies on The Bends and OK Computer was a big album for me in my late teens.

13. The craziest thing I ever saw was…
Ohio thunderstorms like the one outside my window right now.

Southeast Engine Tour Dates :: Southeast Engine News

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