by Whitney Youngs
There’s something to be said about starting a band with your own sibling. You share a bond that transcends music and creativity. You are adjoined by blood and a history dating back to birth and childhood.
Chris and Oliver Wood are two such siblings. And the Wood Brothers is one such band.
With Chris on bass, Oliver on guitar and vocals, and Jano Rix on drums, the Wood Brothers made its debut with the Blue Note recording “Ways Not To Lose” in 2006.
The overarching theme of the Wood Brothers’ latest album entitled “Paradise” permeates with ironies and paradoxes that underscore the intricacies of life. The song “Without Desire” boasts the sort of jovial rhythms you’d find on Bourbon Street, while the lyrics highlight the complicated relationship people have with the concept of desire.
“I think desire gets a bad rap a lot of times and has a lot of negative connotations, but it’s also wired into us,” explains Chris. “I think it’s more important to be okay with it. It’s more important to be self-forgiving, it’s part of our nature. It’s not something we have to get rid of, it’s something we have to accept.”
“Paradise” marks the first time Chris and Oliver wrote songs with each other in the flesh, as both brothers now live in Nashville. Chris moved from New York City, and Oliver from Atlanta. They recorded the album at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye studio. The brothers relocated to the Music City for their careers, but also so their kids could grow up in the same town.
“For the first time we could sit in a room together and work on a brand new song,” says Chris. “It was the first time we could work on songs from the ground up. And there’s nothing like being a room with someone, playing an idea, and watching the reaction on their face.”
The Wood Brothers enlisted friends Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, who lent a guitar solo and vocal harmonies, respectively, to the song “Never And Always,” a song that showcases Rix on a homemade instrument called the shuitar (www.shuitar.com).
“The implication is that it’s a shitty guitar and that’s why it’s a percussion instrument and not a guitar,” explains Chris. “It’s an American instrument that allows us to play unplugged and acoustic, but still have a beat. I am not talking percussion and it’s not Brazilian or African, but very American, like a drum kit or beat box, but all acoustic.”
The songs “Snake Eyes” and “American Heartache” correspondingly explore the notion of paradise in the context of getting lucky and achieving the American Dream.
“American Heartache is more tongue and cheek, “says Chris. “It deals specifically with our American Culture and the feeling that we want to have it all. We are surrounded by media that’s constantly selling us that dream. It’s so prevalent that we don’t even notice it.”
The Wood Brothers also delve into West African melodies—sounds coincidentally common to the avant-garde jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood to which Chris belongs—on the song “Heartbreak Lullaby.” Chris goes electric on the song “Raindrop,” accompanying another homemade instrument called the buzzaphone played by Matt Glassmeyer.
“Matt plays saxophone, but puts a trumpet or trombone mouthpiece on it so it sounds like a unique brass instrument,” adds Chris. “So a lot of the songs that sound like they have a brass section are actually just a trombone and the buzzaphone.”
The Wood Brothers perform Jan. 21 at the El Rey Theatre.
