In his own words, rocker Scott H. Biram borrows as much from the hillbillies as he does the rednecks and mountain folk.
But regardless of the startling end result – a blues hybrid fueled by Biram’s percussive pounding of a battered Gibson hollow-body guitar- his evolution as an artist began on familiar ground.
He was introduced to music as a toddler in the tiny rural town of Prairie Lea, Texas, by the guitars strewn about his aunt and uncle’s house. He tinkered with the instruments, as would any curious tyke, and then studied the keyboard when he was 10. He started his first band a couple of years later.
In high school and college, in the larger Austin neighbor of San Marcos, Biram played in punk and metal bands until he turned 20 and stumbled across a time capsule in the form of some old records. It changed his life.
“I rediscovered the blues and rediscovered old- time bluegrass music and hillbilly music,” Biram said earlier this week from a Montana interstate. “It changed everything, and I started studying it a lot and reading biographies of these country and bluegrass artists – Woody Guthrie for example – and learned about what brought them to where they were and how it brought them to that kind of music.”
Understanding the evolution of these other artists helped Biram realize his potential as a musician. And that aesthetic – voices of gristle, guitars of mud, drums like slugs to the chest – is something the 32-year-old Biram, who plays the South Park Music Festival this weekend, has been crafting and tweaking the past decade.
He started with the hook-oriented stylings of George Strait and Clint Black, the country his parents listened to in the ’80s. On top of that he built a foundation of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Doc Watson, Leadbelly, Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills. Joey Ramone is in there too, as Biram has a way of getting in and out of songs as if they were an old pair of loose-fitting overalls.
“Everything has just melted together,” said Biram. “My brain’s a melting pot for music. And I get songs stuck in my head all the time, riffs and guitar parts, and I’m the first to admit that my guitar playing and songwriting is borrowed from older songs. Not directly, but it’s inspired by a lot of older stuff.”
Biram left behind a couple bluegrass bands in favor of the solo game. It makes life on the road much simpler, and given that Biram has been spending 10 months a year on the road since his first release on Chicago’s respected Bloodshot Records in 2005, it’s a worthwhile investment.
The one thing Biram didn’t want to give up, though, was the rock clubs his rowdy groups would frequent. And so he decided that rather than be classified a singer-songwriter, he would push himself as a one-man band.
“I love playing in rock venues with rock bands, and I’m a rocker at heart,” said Biram. “And so the only way I could play and compete with those bands was by playing with them and being as loud as them, so I had to make percussion for myself and do some other things myself.”
You would think his limited manpower would change the way Biram records an album, that he would pare the tracking back and try to capture the essence of the music. But he doesn’t let that concern him in the studio, as evidenced by the dense, rich texture of his new record, “Graveyard Shift.” He usually uses six or eight tracks to capture a song, but he’s also used upward of 28 tracks when it comes down to blasting something out, making a gospel choir of his own voice, tossing in a tambourine, using multiple vocal mics and the like.
“I’m pretty good at replicating it live, but little extra things like handclaps and sometimes an organ or lead guitar won’t be there in the live show,” Biram said. “But there’s really nothing missing in the live show. I’m loud and there’s percussion and guitar and vocals and harmonica. I can play lead and rhythm at the same time without one of them dropping out.
“And some people, when they can’t see the entire stage, think there’s an entire band playing, and then they realize it was just you up there, and they say, ‘I’ve never heard that much music coming from one person before.’ ”
“I hear that a lot. And it makes me feel good inside. It’s why I keep doing it.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
South Park Music Festival
INDIE ROCK, ALT-COUNTRY, FOLK|At stages throughout Fairplay, 90 miles southwest of Denver. All day today, Saturday and Sunday, featuring musicians including Scott H. Biram, The Paybacks, The Photo Atlas, Whispertown 2000, Those Young Lions, Born in the Flood, The Thieves UK, Hot IQs, Richard Edwards, Laylights, Man in Gray, Otis Gibbs and 140 others. |FREE|For more information, see southparkmusic.com
