Comment on this story What: The Rockwells and The Passport Again Double CD Release Show When: Thursday, April 29, 9 p.m. Where: Pilot Light Cost: $5

The Rockwells tighten up in the name of progress

by Paige M. Travis

Few musicians in their mid-20s are as organized as The Rockwells’ Jonathan Kelly. “This is our plan for the next year,” he says, pulling out a brown, bound notebook and pointing to a map of the United States. He’s circled a region of the Southeast with a northern border of Cincinnati and a southern line bisecting the Deep South, with dots pinpointing the band’s destination cities. The map shows just how centrally located Knoxville is for a band poised to conquer the South.

The band’s beginnings can be traced back to two teenage brothers playing guitar and bass in their home in Memphis. Those musical seeds planted by brothers Jonathan and Fred Kelly—and further nurtured by brothers Tommy and Trace Bateman—have set roots in Knoxville soil and are now beginning to flower.

The songs on their first self-recordings are dead-ringers for the crystal-clear, spring-fresh Brit-pop of the ‘60s. Jonathan admits they weren’t trying to improve on the original, just produce their own version of the sounds they loved. The recordings, beginning with Raise the Radio in 2000, came quickly, with Return of the Rockwells later that same year, Star Smile Strong in 2001 and Little Symphonies for Kids in 2002. The sound remained cheery, with Little Symphonies hinting at the rock guitar heights they could attain.

By that time, Fred had moved to Knoxville as well as the brothers’ chums the Bateman brothers. The opportunity for the Rockwells to become a full-fledged foursome was nigh, and the band started booking some shows at local clubs and developing their live persona.

“We really started trying to give shows that were exciting,” Jonathan says. “We were coming into songs that we had actually written and arranged together as a foursome.” That show has gelled into one of the scene’s hottest acts. In a musical milieu that doesn’t always reward a concerted effort to put on a good show, the Rockwells’ live performance—whether a 25-minute set opening for The Features at Blue Cats or a three-hour solo gig at Barley’s—is a tight spectacle on a small scale.

But when fans asked which CD to buy—or clubs asked for samples of their work—Jonathan faced a quandary. None of the discs sounded quite like the live show they were progressively more proud of. The goal of the next project became to record an example of their collaborative sound.

Thus the five-song disc, recorded in the Kellys' South Knoxville basement studio and commonly referred to as “the Brown EP,” was born in 2003. It captured the post-Beatles pop-rock sound of their setlist and earned continuous airplay on UT’s college station WUTK. The spare, driving momentum of “It Matters to Me” and groovy lope of “Red and Gray” revealed the Kellys’ maturing voices and a more solid group sound with Tommy on lead guitar and Trace on drums. “We recorded more live than we ever had before,” Jonathan says, with drums and bass tracks laid down at the same time.

The Brown EP, combined with the band’s willingness to play all over town, spread the Rockwells’ name throughout Knoxville—and beyond. Those coveted out-of-town gigs were more of a possibility, but band members, in various stages of work and school (as well as the band The Passport Again which includes Trace, Tommy, Jonathan and J.D. Reager of Glossary), were beholden to rigid schedules.

Flash forward a year to the spring of 2004. The Rockwells have played several out-of-town shows in North Carolina, Johnson City and their hometown of Memphis. They’re also releasing another EP titled Tear It Down. This one, says Jonathan, reflects their live sound and then some—an artistic statement with a few flourishes.

“We wanted it to be something we could feel really good about putting up for review,” he says. “And I mean like in as many places as possible,” like in national music mags like Magnet or papers in cities they’d like to play. The disc’s six songs were recorded in six days with Don Coffey at Studio 613, which is in the same building as their practice space. “It’s beefier all around,” Jonathan says. “I think it rocks in a way that we haven’t really been able to do in recording.”

Getting to know Coffey, regaled for his studio skills as well as his status as Superdrag’s drummer, was a surprising experience. “He had this poppy side that we didn’t really anticipate, and we had this rockin’ side that I don’t think he anticipated,” he says.

Tear It Down is drawn from their current live set, including “Lonesome No More,” a reworked song from Little Symphonies, the six-minute “Theme from Miss Signal,” and Fred’s tribute to the Velvet Underground “Lou Says.” The disc also includes a trombone part played and arranged by Tommy.

With one foot still firmly placed in the ‘60s, The Rockwells’ sound is deepening and broadening. Success for a rock band is a hard-fought and hard-won honor, but if Jonathan’s map and calendar are any indication, the Rockwells hold the directions for a promising future.

April 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 18 © 2004 Metro Pulse