Words by: Lindsay Colip

The Wooden Birds :: 05.31.09 :: Rickshaw Stop :: San Francisco, CA

The Wooden Birds

The scene outside of the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco perfectly encapsulated the overall feeling about The Wooden Birds lead singer-songwriter Andrew Kenny. Well before the show, a fan eagerly waiting for the venue doors to open saw Kenny outside. The bouncer huffed, “This is Kenny,” to which the fan replied, “Yes. I know. And YOU… ARE… AWESOME. I’ve gotta move here.” The fan most likely knows Kenny from his other project, American Analog Set, an Austin-based indie rock band that sadly lived from just 2000-2005. However, to our delight, Kenny has returned to the scene (thank GOD) with a fresh collection of beautiful songs and a solid backing band that includes Leslie Sisson (vocals/guitar), Sean Haskins (drummer), Jody Suarez (percussionist) and Chris Michaels (co-producer/rhythm guitar). Their impressive first album, Magnolia, is out now on Barsuk Records, and yes, they have vinyl.

So how did this project come about? The project and the band came at different times. Kenny recaps: “The Wooden Birds came together in a very backwards kind of way. I knew I had this sound in my mind. I knew I wanted things to sound really percussive. I made the bass all palm muted, banged out the beats on my guitar top, and made it very small sounding but also very rhythmic. All the songs are rhythmic oriented. I had this concept where I put aside for a couple of years all of these songs that I wanted to be on this record, whenever it was done, whatever it was called, whatever happened to it. This was going to be the batch.”

He demoed and re-recorded all of the songs until it felt right and then brought in guitarist/engineer Michaels (who helped with last AmAn Set) to finish the building of the record. After they had the album completed, the question of what the band would sound like came up. There aren’t any drums on the record, hardly any electric instruments, but as Kenny said, “We do want to play some places that aren’t Barnes & Nobles, so we need to put a band together.” Kenny and Michaels didn’t want bandmates who just wanted to go along for the ride, to tour just to get out of town and party it up, but musicians who loved the record as much as they did. They found a perfect compliment in Haskins, Suarez and Sisson. Haskins has played with Kenny many times during solo sets, so he’s not only familiar with AmAn Set songs but also “brings The Wooden Birds songs up to a band level.” Because percussion is all over every song, Kenny also wanted to convince a proper drummer not to drum (really hard to do) but he found Suarez up for the challenge. And finally, Sisson brings the songs to life with her lilting vocals and piercing guitar. Staying true to the feel of the record was a priority for Kenny and he managed to find the musicians who could do just that.

Andrew Kenny

The live show was basically a full serving of Magnolia, with two slices of AmAn Set covers. Can you cover your own band? Yes, you can. He played “Aaron & Maria” and “Kindness of Strangers,” both sweepingly beautiful songs. The crowd was happy to have that bonus at the end. If you’re just now getting into these guys, I’d download “Seven Seventeen,” “False Alarm” and “Ana Paula,” but honestly the whole record is good front to back. It’s reminiscent of Iron & Wine, Blind Pilot and well, American Analog Set. Really smooth beats, breathy voices, simple lyrics, easy on the ears, and not one song you have to fast forward. I’m glad these songs wrestled around in Kenny’s head for years and then finally spit out to become The Wooden Birds. It’s been a humbling experience for him to have gone from playing huge crowds with his last band to playing smaller venues with smaller numbers, but his heart is in the right place and it appears all they need is a bigger band to tour with to help propel them to where they need to be.

Kenny knows plenty of people in this business and realizes it’s about time for him to send some “kindly worded emails” asking for assistance. He mentioned The Decemberists, Shearwater, Broken Social Scene (he moonlighted in this band for a bit) and Stars as bands he’d love to tour with, and hopefully they’re listening. The band is well practiced and coming off a stint in Europe, they have a good bit of momentum coming into the end of their first tour. They’ll soon break and regroup, Kenny will write more songs, and they’ll be ready to hit the road again in the fall. So far, everyone is on board; nobody has fallen to the touring wayside.

At one point in the conversation, the subject turned to Kenny’s voice, which is one of my favorites of all time, up there with Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), Ray LaMontagne and Tony Dekker (Great Lake Swimmers). He says, “I don’t have a really great voice but I’ve sung for long enough to know what I do really well. Do you know what I mean?” At this point we laugh. Yeah, right. “Just trust me. Walk with me down this path. It’s actually not a very good voice, but I know what colors are on my palette and I don’t walk down any dark alleys. I don’t go places I know I’m not going to do well.”

Someone so incredibly modest and intelligent gets my vote. To know your strengths and weaknesses and to work with them is something unique. Too many musicians try to do it all, then ego takes hold and they fail miserably. I think we can expect great things out of Kenny and The Wooden Birds.

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