J.T. Brown grew up in Lutz, Florida with a music-nut father. At one point, Dad was buying so much music that Mom intervened to ask how the family was going to keep the lights on and pay for their kids’ tuition. At nine years old, he was given an alto sax, and two years later he got his first guitar. Now the 32-year-old has been playing guitar for nearly two decades.
“I had a great childhood,” Brown, told CL in a message. “I’ve always loved words, and I’ve always respected songwriters who can tell a story in a clever way.” Brown told a lot of those stories with his former band, The Groves — a Tampa-based Americana outfit that came and went in a relative flash. Brown, who will release his first solo full-length, Phantom Heart, this weekend is straightforward when it comes to talking about The Groves’ demise following a 2012 sophomore LP, Pack Heavy Travel Light.
“I think my ego was probably a bit out of control at that time in my life,” Brown said. “We had a lot of success fairly quickly, and it likely created a false sense of entitlement that rubbed the other members the wrong way. I can’t blame ’em.” Brown was unhappy with the music The Groves were making. He wanted to expand the sound. “I wasn’t equipped to communicate those things in an effective way, so I pushed them away with my frustration,” he added. “I talk to the Travis [Bourguignon, guitarist] and Lane [Smith, drummer] fairly often. They are some of the best friends I have in my life — that will never change.”
Sometimes you still have to leave home to find yourself. For Brown, that meant packing up and heading for a cabin nestled into Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. He spent a month there, recording the bulk of Phantom Heart amidst a mess of recording interfaces, hundreds of feet of cable and soundproofing panels set up for a long recording session. Tampa producer Shawn Kyle — along with Polyenso’s Alex Schultz and Denny Agosto — spent some time in the wood, collaborating with Brown on the record (which got additional tracking with several Bay area locals after initial sessions). Schultz and Agosto are playing drums and bass, respectively, at the release shows where they’ll be joined onstage by guitarist Kyle Pierce, Joe Cosas on keyboard and Melissa Grady on cello. Kyle, for his part, says the Blue Ridge Mountains put on a good show for the crew assembled there.
“We had a flash hailstorm. Luna moths the size of a small hand started arriving on the wall of the cabin balcony,” Kyle said. “I knew that had some meaning, and in the South I remembered that in years long ago they were viewed as an omen of change on the way.”
CL PREMIERE: LISTEN TO "SILKWORM," FROM J.T. BROWN'S NEW SOLO LP
The change is clear on Phantom Heart. Brown’s vocals, already known for carrying a significant emotional weight, are even heavier on songs like “Silkworm,” in which he invites love into his life in the hopes of setting himself free. The joy on Phantom Heart’s opening track quickly fades, however, as lyrics start to weave tales of drug addiction (“Slowhand Killer”) and two-faced romance (“All My Love”). Brown even laments the loss of memories on “Railroad Man,” in which he reflects on the life of his grandfather, a Tampa native, World War II vet and Alzheimer’s patient who once worked as a railroad foreman. The song is the slowest point on the LP, but it bleeds into “Abeille,” where Cosas’s keyboard arrangement lifts the entire record onto its feet. The following track, “Half Moon,” is a no-regrets whiskey drinking song buoyed by horns from trumpeter Kenny Pullin and saxophone player Juanjamon. Still, Brown saves his most desperate lyric for the LP closer, “Tides,” in which he sings about the left brain and blowing enough cocaine to “drive a lesser man insane.”
“Now I’m on fire, my lover lied,” he sings over an angry riff, “how easy to deceive it is when drunk on foolish pride.” Brown doesn’t quite forgive his lover before the song unfolds into a cello part played beautifully by Grady, but he does admit that there is a light that will come to lift the veil on everything.
“Should I make it through the night, I’ll be alright,” he sings, with the sound of chains clanging in the background. The string arrangement was written three years ago, and the sample (achieved with the help of a metal washtub) was recorded at Groves drummer Lane Smith’s family farm around the same time. It’s fitting that Brown reaches into his back pocket to close out his first solo record. The idea around Phantom Heart is like the notion of a phantom limb (where an amputee still perceives his or her arm, leg or otherwise to still be there). While Brown’s past was pushed away from him by ego and an inability to communicate, it never really went away. It actually helped him finally take a big step in his development as a songwriter.
“You know your heart’s been ripped out and torn apart, and you’d like to try and put the pieces back together,” Brown said, “but you figure out along the way that it’s always there, whole, even when it’s gone, and that you’re gonna be fine.”
Justin Thomas Brown plays two album release shows this weekend. The first one is on Friday December 16 at Crowbar in Ybor City with Forrest Hoffar and Pajamas. The second show is on Saturday December 17 at Paper Crane in St. Petersburg with Kerry Courtney, Pajamas and Fr33dback. We'll add a full album stream when it becomes available.
Dylan Melcher's video for "Kool Aid Lips," a single the preceded the recording of 'Phantom Heart.' (read more)
