Interview With The Outback Country Vampire
By April Boyle

"Now I've got my head on straight, and I'm in my prime, standing at the corner of opportunity and time," sings front man Jabe Beyer (lead vocals, guitars, accordion, Wurlitzer, b-3 organ, tenor banjo, harmonica, trumpet) in the recently released song, "Keep On" (OutBack Country Vampire). Jabe is the embodiment of this lyric. If you haven't at least heard of Jabe, it's not for lack of trying on the band's part. Jabe has been tearing up the club and bar scene several times a month with a madcap paced bluegrass/alt-country that's racking up connections and pushing open doors.

The band was chosen to open up for 16 Horsepower in February at Lillis. Then, in June, the quartet got the privilege of opening up for one of their favorite bands, the Old 97s, at the Paradise. "Opening for the Old 97s was fuckin' great," says Beyer. "They were one of the nicest, most welcoming bands we've played with in a long time. No attitudes or anything like that. Just plain old good guys. Funny as hell, actually. They had a lot of good advice as far as business stuff goes, and it was just nice to play with a band we really like and see that they're doing the same shit we do, on a bigger scale, and still have their heads together. They just love music. We might do some more shows in the fall."

Opportunity and time are certainly in Jabe's favor now, but that wasn't always the case. The band has undergone its share of growing pains since Beyer first joined forces with bassist Jay Aucello six years ago. Like many bands, Jabe just couldn't seem to find the right lineup. A perpetually revolving cast of players drifted in and out of the band, making it hard for Jabe to solidify its sound. "Jay and I were the only two that would stay," says Beyer. "I was trying to write all the songs, book all the gigs and rehearse with four different people in a week, at four different times. It was driving me fucking crazy."

Other than Aucello, the only constant seemed to be the band name , much to Beyer's chagrin. Beyer began playing under his name as a solo act. After forming the band, he tried on several occasions to change the name--coming up with such outlandish names as The Twirling Dildo Beacons, Used Erotica, Broken Gold, Hot Rod Chicken Party and Your Mamma's House--but none of the names seemed to take. Says Beyer, "No one liked them, and the band was changing all the time. So, I was like, 'If I'm the only one in this band, I'm just going to call it Jabe.' Now, it drives me nuts, day after day, and I still don't know what I want to do. It's almost too late to change it because we've been playing with this name for so long, but at the same time, it's not just me. It's a bitch of a situation." Beyer may have misgivings about using his name, but his band mates are happy to let it be. "It's short, and it's to the point," says Sean Staples (mandolin, mandoblaster, guitar). "Who cares about the name? Names really don't matter when you come right down to it anyway. So long as people know where to find you, and they come, that's all that's important."

Despite lineup changes, Jabe kept on. Then, in 2000 things began to click into place. Staples joined the band in January 2000, firming up the current lineup that began falling into place in 1999 when Dave Westner (drums, Wurlitzer) switched to drums, after a half-year stint as Jabe's keyboard player.

The media attention and accolades began pouring in. Beyer was awarded the Abe Olman Songwriting Scholarship from the National Academy of Popular Music, SESAC and Songwriting Hall of Fame in February. Later, in April, Jabe took home the Boston Music Award for "Outstanding Debut Album" for the band's first release, Twenty Point Turn, originally released in November 1998.

Jabe followed up the success of Twenty Point Turn with the release of a second album in March of this year. The album is titled Outback Country Vampire, a reference to the band's nocturnal lifestyle. Says Staples, "The nature of playing in this kind of band is that we're out pretty much all night. We generally don't get home until pretty late, more or less vampire hours."

Like Twenty Point Turn, Outback Country Vampire was a do-it-yourself, self-released project. The album utilizes the recording, mixing and producing talents of Beyer and Westner, with the help of D. Dubya at Alphabase, Boston, and the mastering talents of Aucello at Sixpenny Brace Mastering, New Hampshire. With the exception of "Rocky Times Come N' Go" (Beyer/Monge) and "Put Away your Water" (Beyer/Aucello) all songs are written by Beyer.

"I'm a selfish bastard, and it's my band, so I write all the songs," jokes Beyer. "I write pretty consistently, and have for a few years now, so there's no shortage of material to pick from. I tend not to write for a month or so, then 10 songs will just skirt out in like two days, and whatever I'm doing at the time has to wait. If I have a job, I just blow it off. If I have other things to do, they all get sidelined till the songs are done. It tends to piss people off, but I can't help it. I play in other bands where I'm not the songwriting guy, but this band is my baby, and I guess that's just how it is."

Over the two years since releasing Twenty Point Turn, Beyer's songwriting style has evolved, influenced by the various band members and guest musicians who passed through the ranks of Jabe. "My goal for the first album was just to get a bunch of good songs out with the drums, the bass, the guitar and the words and not worry about all the hocus pocus, bells and whistles and fancy guitar playing," explains Beyer. "Since I made that one, I started hanging out in Somerville and the scene that's going on in that area. I've been influenced by that and people that give me music that they're into."

Three out of the four Jabe members play in other bands in and around Somerville. Beyer and Staples both play with The Benders. Staples also plays with his band, the Resophonics. Westner has a band called Fred's Bowling Ball. Over the past few years, Somerville has been growing into an extended family of musicians. Many of these musicians make guest appearances on Outback Country Vampire.

"In Somerville, there's so many bands that are around and so many different people that play together," says Beyer. "It's not really planned out that there's guest people playing on the record. I live with a guy who sings really well. If he's sitting in the kitchen, and we're not doing anything, he's going to sing on it. I've got a friend that plays fiddle. We record everything, and we usually do all the drums and bass at Dave's place. Then we do a lot of the tracking at my house or Dave's place later. It's so low-key that Bow Thayer (The Benders, Bow Thayer and the Euphorians, Elbow) comes in and plays banjo on things. It's very much a community. It's crazy cool."

Outback Country Vampire captures the vitality and enthusiasm of Jabe. This is a band that's not afraid to have fun. It's roots rock, thrown into high gear, with wonderfully told tales of murder, mayhem and love threaded through the music. "It's a real high-energy sort of roots rock," says Beyer. "We jump around and have a good time, but Sean plays the mandolin, and there's a fiddle player all over the record who's going to start playing with us again. I play acoustic guitar about half the time. Jay plays acoustic bass. But, there's no way in hell that it's folk or country. It's like rock with organic instruments."

"It's music that draws heavily from traditional country music, bluegrass and real authentic forms of folk music, but sort of smashes them together," adds Staples. "All of us are in our 20s and early 30s, so growing up with Black Sabbath and Aerosmith was unavoidable. All of us played in garage bands when we were kids, and that's the kind of stuff that we were playing. That's definitely an influence, but as you explore more, you realize that there's a whole world of stuff out there. There's a whole bunch of people that are taking different elements of really raw, soulful traditional music, and they're smashing them together with Husker Du, the Sex Pistols and the Clash. I don't think that necessarily compromises either form of the music." "You can't invent anything completely new these days anyway," agrees Aucello. "Everything is a compilation of something."

The members of Jabe are just trying to have fun and put out some good music in the process. "I'm just a guy who likes to write songs, hang out in bars with my friends, smoke cigarettes, laugh and goof around," says Beyer. "I just try and write songs that say something in a way that brings you through. If it's a sad song, I want to feel better by the end of it. If it's a happy song, I want to feel happy when it's over. Good songs to me make sense today, tomorrow, in 20 years, even 20 years ago. Good songs last. Seems like songs on the radio these days are just so self-pitying, 'I'm a loser and a martyr, and I'll be dead and fuck the world.' Whatever, man. Good luck singing that song when you're 50."

Over the two-year period that Outback Country Vampire was recorded, Jabe's lineup was still in flux. The result is a cast of 11 musicians, including guest musicians and previous Jabe members. Although Jabe is pleased with the end product, the members feel that the band's sound has developed over the last year, with one solid lineup in place.

"If you've got just a whole group of people there playing, it can make for great moments, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the tightest thing in the world" explains Staples. "This has been a pretty steady lineup for a while, and I think the songs definitely get a good treatment as a result of it. I think we're definitely at the point where we're kind of reading each other's minds a little bit. That's when you know a band's been playing together for a while, when you start doing that kind of stuff."

Outback Country Vampire may only be a few months old, but Jabe is already recording another album. The band says that the album is nearing completion, but its release date is contingent on available cash flow. Jabe's big goal now is to get out on the road and tour.

"We can play in Boston four times a month for three years, but it's not going to get us anywhere," insists Beyer. "Now that I feel like we've got a band where people are going to stick around, it's definitely time to go on the road. We can play for hours, three hours at least without stopping, without worrying about it. We've got tons of songs. We're consistent. I think we sound good 99% of the time. I don't want to be the biggest thing in Somerville. I'd like to play all over the county, like every other band, but I think we that we're playing the kind of music that you can play for a long time."

Of course, there's always the issue of money, or the lack of. "It's kind of a sad situation," quips Westner. "We've got no van. We've got no bread to support ourselves on the road. We don't know how to go on the road. So, we're trying to figure that out next. We make records for nothing. So, next we're going to figure out how to go on the road for nothing."

Jabe is always on the move, and the best way to keep track of the band is through the band web site, www.jabe.net. The web site has tour dates, a bio, press, pictures and downloadable mp3 samples. There's also a link to send Beyer e-mail and questions. When tooling around the web site, don't forget to check out the band's quirky "chicken of the month." According to Beyer, there's a chicken conspiracy all over the universe...