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Donavon Frankenreiter and Shooter playing at the Aggie |
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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Wednesday, 25 October 2006 |
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Catching a Musical Wave
Donavon Frankenreiter wants latest album to set him apart from other surfer/musicians
By Glenn BurnSilver
For NEXTnc
 When a perfect wave comes along, you only get one shot at a stoked ride. If you miss it, you can’t just back up and do it again. It is this concept that professional surfer and musician Donavon Frankenreiter transferred to the studio to make his latest album, “Move By Yourself.”
“I wanted to go in and perform in the studio on old gear. I didn’t want to do overdubs and chop things up,” Frankenreiter said from his Laguna Beach, Calif., home. “It’s got a style and flavor and … something I learned is that you put everything you have —passion and emotion — into the song, and then move on. It’s not about being perfect. … There were flaws in it, but they were beautiful flaws. That’s just the music that came out of us when we were in the studio.”
The album has a laid back, soulful feel that reflects Frankenreiter’s beachside, worldwide lifestyle, without compromising integrity. The album was recorded live in the studio and is packed full of 1970s-era funk grooves, massive organ fills, gentle soul ballads and, in Frankenreiter’s words, passion and emotion.
It is a welcome departure from his debut album, “Donavon Frankenreiter,” which was produced by friend, fellow surfer and musician Jack Johnson in Johnson’s Brushfire studio. And it sounded like it — a sing-around-the-beach-campfire type album full of gentle shuffles and easygoing rhythms for the flip-flop wearing, bleached-out crowd looking for unobtrusive music as background for a sunset and a six-pack of Coronas. Frankenreiter, while excited for the public response to his eponymous debut, wanted to move on —“had to move on,” he said — and create something that was entirely his.
PRO PARENTS
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When Frankenreiter made the decision to become a pro surfer at 16, his parents backed him when his school principal wouldn’t. His parents home schooled him so he could follow his dream. “The principal thought surfers were dopers and losers,” he said. “I (turned pro) anyway since I was so driven. You have to not move by yourself against authority, but follow your passions. Life’s short. You have to do what feels right.”
Glenn BurnSilver
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“I wanted people to see me for who I am and hear the music for what it was. I wanted to be somewhere where I could spread my wings and not always be in this comfort zone under Jack’s wing. I just wanted to be myself,” Frankenreiter said, obviously tired of the endless comparisons. “It was a bummer for me when people thought I was just trying to be like Jack. Jack’s my friend and all, but … who’d want that?”
There is little chance of Frankenreiter being mistaken for Johnson now. Sure, he’s a lucky laid-back surfer dude who gets flown around the world to surf, film movies and chill in exotic locales and he also gets to make records. But these days he splits his time between surfing and showing his stuff on stages across the states.
“I wouldn’t want to just do music 24/7,” he said. “Surfing for me is the one thing where it becomes like a Zen world. When I grab my board and hit the water, everything that was clinging to me on land is gone. It’s a really special place for me. I feel like I would die if I didn’t surf... Then when I pick up the guitar again, it feels great too.”
the show
• Donavon Frankenreiter
• Doors 8 p.m., show 9 p.m.; ages 21+
• Sunday, Oct.29
• Aggie Theatre, 204 S. College Ave., Fort Collins.
www.aggietheatre.com
• Tickets: $16; 482.8300
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Rock & Country
Shooter Jennings embraces his roots and marries rock with his daddy’s music
By Glenn BurnSilver
For NEXTnc
 In reality, Shooter Jennings has nothing in common with Donny and Marie Osmond except that they make their living performing music.
Figuratively, however, Jennings shares something with the Osmond siblings: Like them, he’s a little bit country and a little bit rock ’n’ roll.
Try a whole lot of country and rock ’n’ roll.
He is now, anyway.
Despite his country music pedigree, the genre didn’t make much sense to him in his youth.
“It wasn’t like rock and roll just hit me, but as a kid, it doesn’t take much to like rock ’n’ roll,” Shooter Jennings, son of country music legend Waylon Jennings, said recently by phone during a Minneapolis tour stop.
“I didn’t like country at first. I liked my daddy’s music, but I didn’t even like other country music. I didn’t even put it into the same category as my dad’s music. Merle Haggard bored me to death as a little kid because I didn’t get it. You had to grow up and understand it.”
Jennings decided to grow up quick. At 20, having already decided the Nashville “rock scene totally sucked,” he migrated to Los Angeles with friends to make his rock ’n’ roll dreams come true.
“We were a bunch of hillbillies living in L.A.,” he said. “We decided we’d move to LA to be like Guns ’n’ Roses or be like The Doors. My father said I was making a mistake. But that’s where my head was at. I just wanted to go play music, cruise the sunset strip, pick up girls. And I wanted to play with the big boys. That’s how I had to live my life.”
| Playing Axl |
Proclaiming Guns ’n’ Roses “changed my life” and that Axl Rose was “the most badass front man in rock,” Shooter Jennings was one day invited by former GNR members to portray his idol.
“I freaked out,” he said. “It was the craziest experience in my life. It was full circle. Here I was as a kid all into to GNR and then I am singing with these guys. Absolutely, fuckin’ crazy.”
ah, Shooter
Shooter’s actual name is Waylon Albright Jennings. Shortly after birth his father nicknamed him Shooter after he urinated on a nurse.
Glenn BurnSilver |
Jennings was quickly immersed in the scene, forming Stargunn and becoming a player in the Hollywood party circuit. Eventually, however, some of those country lyrics began to make sense for Jennings — he was living them. This reshaped his thinking and with a little musical exploration, a genre connection came together. He dissolved Stargunn and formed a new band, dubbed the .357s, to play hard-rocking country music.
“The best music in history has all been tied to rock and country. It’s all the same, all part of one big thing,” he said. “I just started falling in love with country as I got older.”
For the sake of argument, we won’t argue with Jennings’ rationale. But it cannot be denied that the two styles fuse on “Electric Rodeo” (Lost Highway), his most recent release.
There are swooping power chords, thundering bass and jagged guitar leads melting across pedal steel twang on some tracks, while others are surprisingly traditional, old-school country numbers with lyrics so classic you’ll wish you had a trailer that could be hit by a train while your mother languished sick in jail.
“Those are written with the vibe that carries me the most. There’s some country in me, even if I didn’t get it at first,” he said. “That way it’s real. It’s just beautiful.”
shooter jennings
• with Drag the River
• Doors 8 p.m.; show 9 p.m.
• Wednesday, Oct. 25
• Aggie Theatre, 204 S. College Ave.,
Fort Collins, www.aggietheatre.com
• 482.8300
• Tickets: $13, ages 21 and older | Only registered users can write comments.
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