Revolution Cafe, San Francisco

Chris played his first San Francisco show at Revolution Cafe in San Francisco on January 9th. Check out more photos from the show on the Photos page. I'm looking forward to more San Francisco and Bay Area shows soon.

Wolfgang's Vault Session

Last month Chris Denny visited Wolfgang's Vault for a 4 song session. Check out the videos by the talented David Kluger at Wolfgang's Vault. These songs will be on his new album which is in the works. See more photos from the session on my Photo page.

Photos by April Wise Photography

HBO - Bored To Death

"Heart's On Fire" will be used in a scene between Zach Galifianakis and Kristen Wiig on the hit HBO comedy series, Bored To Death (Season 2, Episode 12: I've Been Living Like a Demented God), on Sunday, October 17th.

Show Website

Showtime - The Big C Trailer

"Time," from the album Age Old Hunger is featured in a trailer for a new original series on Showtime called "The Big C." The trailer will debut on Showtime immediately following the Season Premiere of "Nurse Jackie" on Monday, March 22nd. "The Big C" stars Laura Linney and will air in the fall. The song starts around the 2 minute mark.

Daytrotter

A Mama's Boy Who Sends Old Men Into Barn Rafters

Mar 17, 2010

Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry

We've never met another man, in four-plus years of doing Daytrotter, quite like Christopher Denny. The Arkansas native is a riddle some days. He's a weirdo some days. He's a sweetheart some days. He's a mad man and a comic all of his days, just as he's a musical genius all of his days. He's as complicated of a man as you'll ever meet and yet you root for him, always. He fires bands regularly. He struggles within himself for the kind of contentment and happiness that are going to be lasting and not just flashing and brief and these struggles have made it nearly impossible to get settled into a groove that will one day be his groove. He's battled addictions, like many have, but he insists that he's rounded the corner there with them. More than anything, he's a misguided (at times), but filled with kindness and some volatile, adventurous nature that has him constantly playing with and manipulating fire. He summons all of his demons as well as the spirits of heroes such those old-timey country & western singers who lived in their glasses and bottles of whiskey, who believed in heavy drinking and heavy loving, feeling that there might be a connection between the two, or at least an association that wasn't all that unsavory. He summons up those needs that he has for expression in his own very particular and signature way, which sounds a lot like the Arkansas that he still calls home and one that hasn't existed for over 80 years. His is an antique way of observing his heart - steeped in romantic ideals, just that when he thinks about them, they're butting heads with his swirling thoughts and the many, many tripwires he lays down before himself, almost daring himself to find them and see what happens.

We spent a full week with Christopher Denny and this short-lived ensemble that he called The Natives, an impossibly talented group of childhood friends from the same schools that Denny attended in Little Rock years ago. The sets that the band played on the second Barnstormer tour last October were uncompromising displays of top-shelf musicianship, seriousness and the kind of bluegrass music that is in short supply these days. It's golden and dusty and it's so heartfelt that it hurts. The sets that Denny and his band played in these barns located in Eastern and Central Iowa and Western Wisconsin were primarily new material from an unscheduled, but supposedly already recorded second full-length. They completely slayed every night, one night even prompting a stoic and gruff barn owner to climb the rafters of his barn and sit like a grizzly bear on the beams as he snapped photos of Denny and the crowd. We found out later that Denny had won the man over - we assume anyhow - with his heavy-when-he-wants-it-to-be Southern drawl and dirty stories. In a way, it's how he wins most of us over, first. Then you hear him sing and you'd better be prepared for a flooring. Your ears stammer. Your mouth goes cotton-dry and you're in love as you're listening to Denny sing about people changing - constantly changing - and finding that their loves aren't going to follow them anywhere. "God's Height" was a song that everyone on the Barnstormer every night requested every night even if he didn't want to perform it, but the magnificent song about a "tall mama baby," who's unreachable by a mortal man, is a crowning example of what makes Denny such a brilliant guy. It rips and it awes you. It's exactly how we feel about this mama's boy we hope will become as much of a sensation as we think he should.
Christopher Denny's Debut Daytrotter Session

Paste Magazine

The 10 Best Bands We Discovered at CMJ 2009

By Josh Jackson with Kevin Keller

9. Chris Denny and The Natives
We’ve been hearing about Chris Denny for a long while now, but it took seeing him live for his warbling country crooning to take hold. His voice sounds like something that should have first been recorded on a slate record, but the vintage sound pairs beautifully with unadulterated electric guitar and organ.
Hometown: North Little Rock, Ark.
For fans of: Antony, Hank Williams
Start with: “Time”

Brooklyn Vegan (Conversation with Ben Nichols)

Chris Denny in conversation with Ben Nichols of Lucero (both in town to play shows very soon!) 

Seeing that Lucero is about to be in town with a big show at Webster Hall on Saturday night (10/17), and that Chris Denny (last seen on stage with Deer Tick in Prospect Park) is about to make another NYC appearance (including at the free BrooklynVegan day party at Pianos on Thursday, October 22nd), I thought it might be cool to get these two Arkansas musicians (who have met before) on the phone.

It turned out better than I could have imagined. Chris (who recently singed to Partisan Records making him Deer Tick's label-mate) and Lucero front-man Ben Nichols ended up discussing Lucero's decision to go with Universal Records for their new album (1372 Overton Park), drinking, horns, whiskey, marriage, The Pogues, whiskey, Tom Petty, drinking and much more. Check it out, along with all tour dates and some videos and stuff, below...

Denny: Hey Ben, how ya doin buddy?

Nichols: Hey Chris, I'm good, howya been man?

Denny: I'm great, just got back today from playing a bunch of crazy barn shows up there in Wisconsin...and Iowa. I tell you what, boy was it cold, but I had the time of my life.

Nichols: Barns, nice.

Denny: So anyways, I guess I'm callin to interview you. Now I'm gonna be honest, I don't really know what the hell I'm suppose to be askin you right now. I just know that this is a public interview, so I'm gonna try to expose all your privates.

Nichols: (chuckling) I wouldnt expect you to do anything less, man.

Denny: Shit, I'm just kiddin. I've got some real interview questions. So you and the band just kicked off a pretty big tour. Where are you right now and where are you headin?

Nichols: Yep just kicked off a tour supporting our new album that just came out. We're in DC right now and we'll be out touring the country for the next six weeks. Then take a break for the holidays and go back out in February and March and hit all the places we missed this time around.

Denny: Man, you never stop. And so this new album that you're talkin about, which I love, it was your major label debut on Universal Records. How did u make that decision to go with a major label this time around? Were there any apprehensions?

Nichols: Well basically, kinda like all things that happen with Lucero, we kinda just took the first opportunity we got. The offer from Universal sorta came outta nowhere. It was actually...an accident...I believe. One of our friends who has known and loved and followed the band forever ended up as the A & R rep over there at Universal, and I think she just made it her life goal to get Lucero signed on. If she hadn't gotten that job, I don't think we would've ever gotten an offer from Universal. And as far as the record deal went, she knew that we've been working our asses off for 10 years already, that we had already established ourselves to a certain extent, and that we were gonna want a fair amount of independence. So the deal they offered us was actually a great deal. It was very sensible. It didn't invade what we already set up, we retained all our rights to everything, you know. There was very little intrusion into our world, so it was a really great offer and that made it..less scary. So it wasn't a difficult decision at all. And I guess our mentality is that hopefully, we can get a little more exposure on Universal, maybe a few doors will open for us that wouldn't be open otherwise. So we figured we give it a shot.

Denny: Well that's awesome, congratulations. I know that you guys, probably more than anyone out there, have really earned it. And the album is just great. And speaking of the album, well we all know Ben Nichols has his vices and ain't afraid to write about them....whiskey, women, tattoos, women with tattoos, whiskey, women with tattoos drinkin on whiskey...but on this new album, I feel like I'm hearin' a lot of gambling references too. Where did these come from, have you been hittin' the Tunica casinos without me?

Nichols: Naw. Never been a gambler. 'Hey Darlin do you Gamble' is a quote from the Townes Documentary Be Here to Love Me. It was Townes' pick up line to his third wife. Thought it was brilliant and I had to borrow it. Not sure what the other ones are ... Sixes & Sevens? That's about spending too much money at a strip club in New Orleans. Lipstixx specifically.

Denny: Oh nice, strippers. That was one I left off. Not gonna lie man, I've got into some trouble at those places too.

Nichols: I do not doubt that.

Denny: Alright, now that we're back to your privates. So I kinda have this impression of you, Ben Nichols...

Nichols: (laughing) yeah, I think I know what you're sayin' man.

Denny: Well, we haven't known each other that intimately for very long, besides drinkin whiskey at White Water and playin' a little bit of music, I know we've done that together.

Nichols: Yessir, we have done that.

Denny: So what else do you like to do when you're not touring and playing music 250 days a year? Besides drink whiskey.

Nichols: Hang out at home, read comic books, listen to music. Hell, I'm addicted to all these HBO series just like everyone else - I might watch a little True Blood, a little Generation Kill. They're all pretty badass. And yeah, if I'm in Arkansas, as you know, I do hang out at White Water quite a bit.

Denny: And do you ever see yourself wanting to spend that time with someone else one day....you know, like with one woman? Ben Nichols with one woman. Married. How do you feel about that, about marriage?

Nichols: Hmmmm marriage. That is an interesting question. I guess I've always felt like my career choice and marriage didn't fit good together...at all. So I've done a pretty damn good job at stayin' single and unencumbered for most of my life. It is just a lot easier to go on the road if you don't have anything at home that you miss or care about, but I guess, maybe sometime down the road in the future..I'm gettin older, I'm 35 now...

Denny: Damn Ben, that is old dude.

Nichols: Yeah thanks. But yeah, I'm gettin older, so I guess now the future is gettin pretty fuckin close. So now I'm thinkin yeah, it might be nice someday. Someone to go home to.

Denny: And if you were lookin for that special woman, whats a perfect 10 to Ben Nichols, so to speak....

Nichols: HAHAHA....that is a really really good question. I have no fuckin idea. And that might be another reason why I haven't been the best fella relationship-wise.

Denny: Maybe someone to put up with your drinkin? Hey, just messin withya dude.

Nichols: Well yeah, maybe a little bit. I know one thing, it'd have to be a girl who has her own shit goin on, have her own goals and ambitions, her own life. Something that she's passionate about, no matter what it is. That's an attractive quality for me. And also, as you mentioned, a girl that can drink whiskey, but will also keep me from drinkin' too much whiskey. And that's a tough one, because there's a fine line there.

Denny: Well hell, it seems like you got it all figured out on the woman front.

Nichols: Shit, not at all.

Denny: And on the subject of impressions that other people have about you. How do you feel about all that press stuff? Good or bad, people talkin about you all the time.

Nichols: Well, in terms of the band and our music, the good or the bad. The press thing is tricky, I guess there are a lot of people out there......

[Conference accidentally cutoff. Interview temporarily lost. Oops]

BV: Reconnects.

BV: Sorry guys, we got cut off.

Nichols: What kind of technology are y'all using on me?

Denny: I don't know what the hell is goin on man...some voodoo shit.

Nichols: No worries, well as I was sayin - as I see it, you can't really pay attention too much to the good press or the bad press. I've come to realize that everybody sorta brings their own set of baggage to what they're hearin. Like, I realize especially with this new record. you tell people you got horns on the record and people start freakin out on you. and then you start worrying. And i guess it's because, when I'm thinking horns, I'm thinking of good horns, like The Band, The Last Waltz - they had a horn section on the Last Waltz and it was awesome. Or of course, Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones..there are horns all over Exile on Main Street. That's what's in my head, that's what I'm thinking. But when you mention horns to someone else sometimes...I don't know what they're thinking. But whatever they think when they hear that we we're gonna have some horns on this new album, I guess that freaks out a lot of people.

So yeah, everyone brings their own prejudices to the music you're playin. But to me, music is such a personal thing. So i think it's tough to make up rules. There is no right and wrong, hardly ever. So I never get too bent out of shape over it.

And as far as what people write about me personally...well shit, apparently i don't have that great of a reputation. But that's fine with me too. If someone wants to think im a drunken womanizer. That's fine, I'll be a drunken womanizer to them. I ain't too worried about what gets said about me by people I don't know...I think the folks that actually know me, really know me. And that's what matters to me.

Denny: Amen to that. Alright, a few more questions...you write a hell of a lot of sad songs, which just makes me assume you're sad all the time. So what musician (personally for me, it's Willie Nelson) do you go to when you're down and out and need to get out of your head, what album drags you outta your bed and makes you happy and love life again?

Nichols: Let me think...what's one that always works? Tom Petty. Always. And I think one of my favorite songs ever is Stop Draggin My Heart Around...just because i love Stevie Nick's voice. And I love the way Petty puts a song together. Ive got a real soft spot for that era, that's the stuff i grew up on. And Petty is great because he makes you feel good and happy, but he makes you feel tough too.

Denny: Yeah, that's how I feel about John Prine, I put on John Prine and I feel like I can walk on water. And on the other end of the spectrum, what album or artist do you go to when you just want to be depressed and sad?

Nichols: Of course youve got Townes Vans Zandt. If you really want to soak up and appreciate the rougher, tougher, just sad part of life. He hits that nail on the head, square on. And I know his name gets tossed around a whole lot these days, but that's definitely for a reason. There aren't any songwriters that have really touched me like him.

Denny: Absolutely. OK, here's a fan question someone wanted me to ask you. How many times have you passed out, hugging a monitor on stage?

Nichols: Haha, well that is a tricky question to answer. You'd have to ask my band. But probably...a fair amount. But you know, we've been doin this for 11 years now, so I've had plenty of opportunities to fuck it up pretty good. And I think I succeeded in taking every damn one of those opportunities. But actually nowadays, we've really got our shit together. I think we're playin better now than we ever have before. Because we have these new guys playing with us, Rick Steff on keys, Todd Beene on pedal steel, and the new horns section - and they are just super talented, so they're constantly making the rest of us step up our game. So of course, I've been tearin' it up after the shows, but regulating myself during the shows. Kind of a balancing act, but I think we're at a really good spot. Best we've ever been.

Denny: If you could play a show with anybody, who would it be?

Nichols: The Pogues. I've been into them ever since I was 14. Shane McGowan was definitely an inspiration as a songwriter. And we actually got to play a few shows with them, one in New York, so that was definitely one of the highlights of my career. And besides that, I'd actually go back to Petty. I think with as good as we're doin right now, it'd be a perfect match and where we're at right now, I think we could actually open for Petty. And that feels great.

Denny: And yall are about to play another big show in New York City Saturday night. What are your thoughts on that place? Because I'm headin up there [for CMJ] next week and that place just scares the hell out of me sometimes.

Nichols: I love passing through New York and we know a lot of great folks there, but if I'm there too long I get claustrophobic. Hate driving there. Hate parking there. It can be tough. We always have a blast in NYC but it's always nice to head south again. But yeah, tomorrow night, we play Webster Hall. We're doing all the shows on this tour with the full horns section for the first time and have just been blowin' it up every night. So Webster Hall in NYC, shit yeah. It's gonna be fun as hell, we can't wait.

Denny: Well best of luck to you, Ben. Thanks for lettin me do this, you are always a real inspiration for me and I can't wait to catch you back in Arkansas.

Nichols: Of course man, same to you.

Denny: Oh wait, I forgot I have one more question submitted by one of our mutual buddies up there in New York....If you were to ever land in jail - what crime would you have committed?

Nichols: Come on... It's gotta be public intoxication. Which is pretty much what I do for a living.

Thanks Ben, Chris, and Katie!

Daytrotter - Barnstormers Sessions

Barnstormer II

Oct 8, 2009

The most telling aspect of the second Barnstormer tour was that as lucky as we got with kind summertime temperatures in July, we got blindsided by dastardly cold weather the first week in October. Instead of what should have been prime and mild autumn conditions, Dawes, Maritime, Suckers, Christopher Denny and the Natives, Snowblink, Paleo, and Brooks Strause were greeted with frigid temperatures, some 30 degrees below normal, with highs never getting out of the low 40s. Bands played in these open-air barns wearing as much as they possibly could, drinking whiskey and hot cocoa faster than they normally would have. We started the 6-day tour in Milwaukee, Wisc., at the Turner Hall Ballroom, the only non-barn, but the result of a kind offer from our friend Ryan Matteson of Muzzle of Bees. It was one of only two nights in warmth, though the show happened on a rainy evening. Night two saw the caravan take us to Lodi, Wisc., and the Treinen Farm Pumpkin Patch, which was a playground of fall delights, including a corn maze, pumpkin launches and plenty of goats and horses. Night three took us back to Maquoketa, Iowa, where the Biehl family had erected a stage for Barnstormer. There was an ice cream cake and crock pot after crock pot of soup and chili to eat the morning after. Then it was a short drive north to Bellevue for a return to the Mooney Hollow Saloon, where heat was had once again and the bed & breakfast was fantastic. We returned to West Liberty on the following day and ended the tour in Johnston, Iowa, with an ice storm closing out the night.

Watch the videos and Listen to the live recordings at Daytrotter.com

Turner Hall (Milwaukee, WI)

Treinen Farm Corn Maze (Lodi, WI)

 

Daytrotter

A National Treasure Just Waiting To Be Dug Up And Buried By More Women

Apr 9, 2008

Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound Engineering by Patrick Stolley

There is a story that Christopher Denny's friend tells about the young Arkansas songwriter that probably only affected the lad on a subconscious level and yet it may have been as oddly life-changing as it was told to have been. He'd seen Denny playing live numerous times, always wowing with that voice that is enriched with the ghost of Roy Orbison and the ghosts that Bob Dylan dances and co-writes with, but never working out the performance aspect that should go along with sounds. Here was a guy who had been touched by that dust, the gold stuff that is potent and scarce, and he wasn't the part.
He was a vector, just an agent of this miraculous talent, living with his words when he wanted to, when they came to him at the fishing hole or when the room hung thick with cigarette smoke, but not in front of the people that they were being played to. All of this changed with Denny went and got inked up with tattoos for all to see, said his buddy. Like a light switch, he was a man, a REAL man who embodied all of the heartbroken, tears in beers songs that he wrote into the forms of modern day classics before they had time to catch their breaths or to wipe the birth gook off of their little song bodies. At a Hot Freaks party during the South By Southwest Festival, Denny had his favorite short-brimmed hat (one Keith Richards and Johnny Depp would applaud him for) on, jean shorts that had been sloppily converted from their former state and boots that I believe are called frog stompers where he's from - and he was raring. Everything did match. He looked like the Tom Sawyer figure that he was cut out to be, one that could have easily been seen with a twig of straw hanging out of the corner of his mouth, but with a set of pipes and a writer's intuition that soon enough will be recognized as timeless. He's always been that boy from the country - humble and polite - but he now had a little bit of the visible snake bite that could serve as proof that these things had really happened to him - that love had been a cruel swordsman, brandishes and stabbing without warning and often times from out of the blind spot. He took on that appearance of a man who had been violently wronged by a woman - a creature that pretends to be meek and lovely, to be helpless and caring only to strike venomously to paralyze and disable whenever the breeze blew her way wrongly. He probably kicked something hard, probably cursed a lot, probably moped a little bit and then he probably got around to missing her, just as if she'd never done anything objectionable to him. It's how those women hit us like toms, beat us into believing that they could never, would never harm the way that they've already done or that they - as a gender - have been reputed to do with malice, cold and calculated and unsuspecting.
What better things to get all burnt up inside about than the whimsies of women - the black hearts of them when they're wearing all white - and their ability to circle back around, rally the pulse again, get men to believe that they've changed enough to let them back in only to find new ways to perform the same old trick. Denny makes sure to get across on Age Old Hunger that he's always willing to stick his neck out for love, that he's always willing to try it on for size. He's never found love or the tenderness of it to be deplorable. Some things are just what they are maybe. Some things need to be tart and so teeth-breakingly, chokingly sweet to be what they really are and Denny couldn't be a better interpreter. He makes love feel like a raging wildfire, the Arctic Ocean, a sucker punch and a vaccine. He makes it feel like no matter the setbacks, no matter what the potential drawbacks could possibly be, you should cannonball right into the deep end. He makes it feel like you took a nasty spill on a gravel road and you're sitting along the ditch picking dusty rocks from your skin. He also makes it feel like this weird rebirth, the one that we've always longed for post-crisis. He will turn you cathartic if you allow it to happen.

Aquarium Drunkard

Christopher Denny :: Age Old Hunger

Lately, while in the car, I’ve been listening to Christopher Denny’s album Age Old Hunger. At eleven songs and 43 minutes, it’s a strange, and entertaining, take on the classic Dylan mojo. While Denny’s androgynous croon may not be for everyone, it gives his plaintive folk songs the bottom and personality lacking in so many of todays singer-songwriters. If pressed to describe Denny’s “sound” in a phrase, I’d say it is something like Antony & The Johnsons – if Antony had spent his formative years in Denny’s native Arkansas, locked in a room, with nothing but an old copy of Highway 61 Revisited to keep him company. If that sounds like your thing, you’ll want to check out a couple of tracks off Age Old Hunger below.

Download:
MP3: Christopher Denny :: Gypsy Into A Carpenter
MP3: Christopher Denny :: Westbound Train

Amazon: Christopher Denny – Age Old Hunger