A funny thing happened after the Dexateens wrapped work on their fifth album, Singlewide. The band suddenly realized that it already had another album, Lost and Found, ready to go as well.
That's how things have rolled lately for the Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based garage rockers, who will now release the more recently-completed Lost and Found as the Dexateens' new, internet-exclusive album in March.
"The title of this album has been stuck somewhere in the consciousness of the Dexateens since the very beginning of our band," explains singer-guitarist Elliott McPherson. "I remember hearing the words when I saw John Smith perform the song 'Lost and Found' 12 years ago in a sandwich shop one night."
"The phrase 'Lost and Found' also appeared in the lyrics of two different Dexateens songs before we ever thought about recording that actual song," he continues. "In 'Pine Belt Blues' (on Red Dust Rising), the lyric referred to the time in my life when I met my wife and found out about love." Makers Mound' (from Hardwire Healing) uses the phrase to express a state of frustration from time spent reasoning faith with good common sense.
While the winding roots of Lost and Found can be traced back though those seminal moments, McPherson, Smith and the rest of the band wouldn't properly address those various threads until many moons later, when the Dexateens were neck-deep into working on Hardwire Healing (2007), and Smith had temporarily relocated to Ohio.
"There was a period of about a year that John was not in the band," McPherson adds. "During that same year John wrote these songs which he sent to me on a cassette tape with just a date written in black marker on them. It only seemed appropriate that we title this record Lost and Found. Maybe I feel that way because our band wasn't the same until he was a part of it again.”
The full complement of Dexateens, including guitarist Nikolaus Mimikakis, bassist Matt Patton and drummer Craig 'Sweet Dog' Pickering, re-convened with McPherson and Smith in Tuscaloosa in early 2006. The weekend sessions at Old Capitol Recording with engineer Shane Lollar resulted in no less than half of Lost and Found's 9-tracks, from the breezy "Sweet Little Loser" to the well-worn groove of the title track, "Lost and Found."
Then came the aforementioned (and still waiting-in-the wings) Singlewide. In between a pair of European tours to support Hardwire Healing, the Dexateens bolted for Nashville to record with Mark Nevers (Silver Jews) at his home studio, The Beech House.
The Music City sessions also marked the last recordings made with the band's original drummer, as Pickering left the Dexateens shortly thereafter to form a new group, the Sweet Dog Experience, and Brian Gosdin was recruited to fill the void behind the drum kit.
In late 2007, as the Dexateens were prepping Singlewide for release (or so they thought) McPherson and Smith returned to Old Capitol for another session with Lollar. By weekend's end the duo had essentially completed the rest of Lost and Found.
"We have always been able to record our albums quickly," McPherson says of the Lost and Found and Singlewide LPs. "On the opposite side of the coin, there are aspects of our band that are barely functioning. We've had a few years when we played less than 30 shows. That’s barely enough to be able to call yourself a band. But when we get the chance to go into the studio, we've always been hungry to make music."
In March, the Dexateens will perform at SXSW music festival in Austin, TX in conjunction with the free Internet release of Lost and Found via Skybucket Records.
"Lost and Found to me has many underlying truths not only about our band," McPherson says, "but also about the way things are in normal everyday life. Things have their time to shine and their time to fade. The things that were meant to survive might leave for a while, but they always come back around in better fashion than when they left.” |
