Sometime last spring (which is like a 1000 years a go in blogosphere (I still shudder at the word) terms-ed) we stumbled upon Junior League and it was band crush on first sight. A listening party of their delightful debut “Oh Dear” followed, and since then we’ve been unseparable: they’ve posed for fashion spreads for us, toured and diaried away, played shows we loved, picketed for peace, played banjo for Missy Eliott and Lissy has even written the occasional review for us.
Some may say, we’ve been going steady.

This Saturday, Junior League releases their second album, “Mitchell Williams for Govena” with a party @ The Cat (Jukebox the Ghost and Say Hi are playing too) and we decided there is no better way to ease into the weekend than to have them tell us all about it.

Take it away kids: 

   

Lissy: This record was unique in that we did this record entirely on our own. Every song is an original, all tunes were arranged by the band, Will (our drummer) tracked, engineered, and mixed the entirety of the record (at Avalon Studios in town) and all manufacturing and mastering were paid for by money we have saved from shows, record sales, and our own pockets. The album art (Jon Langford of the Mekons, Bloodshot Records) and graphic design (BYT’s own John Foster and Junior League Band’s Brandon Schmittling) were donated to the project. And now we present a glimpse of Mitchell Williams Fo Govena. Eli Cohn on guitar and dobro, Will Waikart on the drums, Martin Thomas on the harmonica, Kailin Yong on the fiddle, Lissy Rosemont on vocals and banjo, Alex Platt on the bass, Erik Lawrence on the baritone saxophone, and Sadie Dingfelder playing violin on a guest track.

 

 

With Hannah:
Will: Lissy wrote a fiddle tune for the record to keep the bluegrass/Appalachian vibe alive- a kick back of sorts to her family’s fiddler’s festival (www.fiddlersgrove.com) hence naming it after her sister, Hannah. When it came to actually recording it I tried to keep it as authentic as possible during that process. This meant everyone had to crowd around 1 microphone to record the song in mono (mmmmmmm, mono). It took a while to get everyone in the right spot - “okay, Lissy, back up…Eli, pivot to your left 3 inches…Martin, no dancing” - but I’m glad we kept it old school.

 

Someday:
Will: Sometimes you don’t know what to make of a song until it starts coming to life in the studio. Once the bass and drums were laid down for “Someday” it took on this bouncy, bluesy feel that I really dug, but later doing the vocals for this track was the most fun. Lissy and I had been tracking vocals for a while and it was getting late and Lis was getting close to the bottom of her bottle of wine. “Someday” was the last song on the agenda for the night so we decided to try some different things and experiment. After a few decent takes I had Lissy back way off the mic and just belt it out and EUREKA, the song just sort of came to life.

 

South Carolina Blues:
Lissy: This summer, I’ve been attending a number of Levon Helm shows. I had taken Junior League to Merlefest to play the open mic stage. I had heard Old Crow Medicine Show was discovered doing that and I love Doc Watson- who started the festival. There was quite the thunderstorm as we drove in, so we didn’t bring our instruments, but did luck out on some backstage passes when we were handing out demos. Soon enough, I met Erik Lawrence, Levon’s sax player and since then have been watching the Levon Helm Band do their thing at any chance I can get. Watching this 70 year old man, with so much soul rock it out on the drums, as well as spotlighting his daughter (who sings in his band with him), and supporting the big band/rock band thing again- it’s been such a treat. Tom Hnatow (with These United States) gave me Levon’s Dirt Farmer record in March and I fell hard for it. I never thought I’d be meeting the man himself. I want to write songs like the one Levon delivers so well. In particular, I liked the beat on “A Fool in Love” that they recently covered (an old Ike and Tina song) so I took that beat and used that to build the song on. That Levon’s own horn player, Erik Lawrence, turned around and offered to record on that particular song- well, I am all smiles. You can’t really ask for much more than that.

 

Folding Cash:
Lissy: And now we introduce, Eli Cohn. Songwriting. Eli and Alex joined me with my dad’s band at Fiddler’s Grove this year. Eli brought this great riff with him and the layout of the tune. I took it home, and wrote a melody for the verse and a little storyline. Eli covered the bridge, melody and word wise, and the band tweaked the intro and outro. It’s one of my favorite tunes on the record hands down.

Eli: “I wasn’t actually setting out to write a song at all. I was just goofing around with my guitar late at night trying to avoid sending out booking emails when I stumbled on to this little groove that
eventually became Folding Cash. I remember thinking, “could that be a song?” and realizing it was 2 A.M and telling myself, “no that’s not a song. Go to bed.” About thirty minutes later I woke up with the thought, “no, that’s a song” And dragged myself out of bed to play for another couple of hours. The most exciting part of the whole process was bringing what I had done to practice a couple days later. It’s an incredible experience to hear other musicians bring an idea you’ve had to life and add their own flavors to it and take it in directions you hadn’t thought of. It might be my favorite part of being in a band. I can’t wait to perform Folding Cash live in front of a local audience for the first time, I’ve been thinking about it for months.”

 

The Bus:
Lissy: Hmmmm love love love.

 

want more:
befriend them on myspace
and catch them live @ The Cat on Saturday

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