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What:
Stateside with American Minor

When:
Thursday, Sept. 26 at 10 p.m.

Where:
The Pilot Light

Cost:
$5

Never Say Never

John Paul Keith returns to K-ville via Alabama and France

by Mike Gibson

In the last two years, John Paul Keith has lived in New York, recorded in Nashville, moved to Birmingham, and distributed a record on a label in France.

His heart is that of a Knoxvillian, though. And so is the sound of his band Stateside, a clear-headed amalgam of power-pop hooks and braying country-tinged rock.

"I have very strong feelings about where I'm from," Keith says, speaking to a Metro Pulse reporter in a recent phone interview. "I lived in Nashville for a while, but I never felt like a Nashvillian. I always reminded people there that I was a Knoxvillian. It was a point of pride."

A native of the Grainger County community of Blaine, Keith forged his considerable chops in the Knoxville music scene of the mid '90s. Musically precocious, he was the hot-shot kid who co-founded the city's beloved V-roys (then called the Viceroys) country-rock outfit in 1994, the guitar whiz who quit the band only months before they earned a record deal in 1996.

"There was a period when I thought Knoxville was the hottest thing going, musically," Keith said. "There was a real interesting sound coming out of it, with people like the V-roys and Superdrag and Todd Steed and Terry Hill. I learned about recording in Nashville, but I learned about what makes a good song in Knoxville."

Keith moved to Nashville in '96, and soon found new success with the Nevers, a pop-rock unit he started with fellow former Knoxvillians David Jenkins and Paul Noe. The Nevers kicked up enough Music City ruckus to earn a contract with Sire Records, but the deal went awry when the label decided not to release a record, yet refused to let go of their option.

"They [Sire] over-signed during that time, and we didn't make the cut when they decided whose records to release," Keith says. "Then we were stuck in limbo. They kept our option, thinking they might put something out in the future."

By the time Sire released them from the contract in 1999, Keith says, the Nevers had run their course, and the members parted amicably. But while Jenkins and Noe went on to other pursuits, Keith took many of the old Nevers songs and recast them under the moniker Stateside, with Nashville-based musicians Adam Landry, Brad Pemberton, and Billy Mercer. Their first release, Twice as Gone, was eventually picked up by Fargo Records, a small independent label in France. That line-up also dissolved, however, when Pemberton and Mercer bolted for sideman gigs with Nashville singer Ryan Adams (who added backing vocals to Twice as Gone). Armed with a battery of good songs but no one to play them, Keith moved to New York City in 2001.

"I was in Nashville almost five years, and I'd had enough of it," he says. "There's a very mercenary mentality among the musicians there, and I got tired of it."

His Big Apple stay was cut short when old friend and guitarist Philip Shouse called from Decatur, Ala., looking for a band. Keith was enthusiastic about a collaboration, and even more so when Shouse called back weeks later having recruited three other musicians, brothers Thomas (guitarist) and Nikolaus (drummer) Mimikakis and bassist Greg Slamen.

"I was already a big fan of Philip and his guitar playing," Keith says. "Then I came down and rehearsed with the other guys and that was it. It was unbelievable.

"I don't like coming up with all the ideas in a band. I write a lot of songs, but I like people coming up with their own parts. We're approaching things differently from the way most three-guitar bands would. We have lots of layered parts. This is the most collaborative band I've been in since the V-roys."

Keith is also enamored of his new locale; the Auburn area in particular "reminded [him] of Fort Sanders. There are people playing because they like to play, and not because of money or career advancement. I really love that."

Now Keith and company look toward a handful of European dates, including a show in London on Oct. 1, one of the perks

of working with a label in France. And Keith says Fargo's size and independent status are well- suited to a Knoxville boy with incorruptible creative designs. "I've learned that if you can make things independently, even finance them yourself, you'll be better served," Keith says. "Then you have options. Then you control the show."
 

September 26, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 39
© 2002 Metro Pulse