The Road Gets Darker From Here - Gallon Drunk

Gallon Drunk

My love of the band Gallon Drunk has been an exercise in patience and persistence.  While I was definitely predisposed to like them, it took me several years to truly catch on.
I first heard of the band the same way I heard about everything those days, due to Nick Cave. Gallon Drunk frontman James Johnston was a guest musician when Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds toured as part of Lollapalooza in 1994. This was when I was starting to realize that anyone associated with Nick Cave probably had another band I wanted to hear (Einsturzende Neubaten, Crim and The City Solution, Magazine. I wasn't yet onto the Triffids).  So this Johnston guy, eh? What's his band? Gallon Drunk huh? All right I'll file that away for later.

"Later" turned out to be 1996 I found myself in a record store in Denver. I can't recall, but I was probably looking for one of two things. Either a bootleg of Nick Cave singing happy birthday to his grandmother when he was 4 years old, or some pretty music I could listen to with the Irish girl. But I found three inexpensive Gallon Drunk CDs instead. And Gallon Drunk was not "pretty" music.

At first, I didn't think Gallon Drunk was that impressive music either. Seemed to have an okay formula. Get a heavy driving bassline, add a bunch of hoots and hollers and some growled lyrics and you had a pretty good song. But to my ears at the time, they all pretty much sounded like the same song. Like I said, it's good stuff. It just didn't completely grab me yet.

Then came 1996's "In The Long Still Night".  That bassline is still kicking ass, but now there's more tunefulness. And love those keyboards! (Full disclosure, when I go back and hear those first few albums, the keyboards melodies are there. I just didn't realize it yet.) They found a way to highlight what had been minor elements in their music before and yet not lose any of what made them Gallon Drunk to begin with.

I'd love to say that I became a Gallon Drunk devotee for life. But I lost touch when the band took a long hiatus after their great 2007 album "The Rotten Mile." Not my fault. right? The band stopped, Sure but when they came back around in 2012 where was I? Honestly? I was wasting too many brain cells on how many pairs of f#@kin' socks people were buying at my store. So it took me until 2016 to get back into the "New" Gallon Drunk and James Johnston, but thank goodness that I have. They've released two great albums since returning and James has just released his first solo record. Oh, and he's been touring as part of both PJ Harvey's band, and Mick Harvey's (no relation) "Serge Gainsbourg" tour. James Johnston. It's time to pay attention to this guy.

Take This Poison from 1996

A Thousand Years from 2012

James Johnston Solo "I'd Give You Anything" 2016

Buy Gallon Drunk music on Amazon