As Horney As They Want To Be
By Leslie Basalla

The Greenhornes are a perpetual motion machine, a self?fulfilling prophecy. Fueled by an equal mix of day?to?day reality and the dictates of a venerable blues and rock tradition, the Cincinnati?based garage band writes hand?driving, soulful songs of heartache and loneliness and (as the title of one goes) pain and misery. That powerful combination of downtrodden emotion and swaggering rock and roll has brought devoted listeners, which leads to constant touring, which means the band members never seem to be home long enough to land and keep girlfriends, which means more heartbroken anthems, more touring, and so on as the whole cycle spins around again and again.

But here's the thing - they like it that way, and it seems to have brought them enough success to keep the juggernaut going for quite some time.

The band recently returned from a tour of England, where among other things, bassist Jack Lawrence played at a Jeff Beck/Yardbirds tribute show at London's Royal Pavilion Hall, with the man himself and the seemingly inescapable White Stripes. British music snobs seem to be eating them up, they've been reviewed, recommended and gossiped about in at least three issues of Mojo in the last six months, and stateside, their modest fame has kept their shows packed coast to coast.

They've also just released their third album, a lean, mean collection of 12 songs called "Dual Mono." It's their first without original guitarist Brian Olive and organ player Jared McKinney.

And so they're on the road again, touring throughout the US to let all the folks who heard 'em first know that they still care.

When asked if the relentless pace ever burns them out, band members brush off the suggestion.

"After a month or so, you want to get home," Lawrence admits. "Then you go home and you want to get away again. After a couple of days you want to go back."

"Where I lay my head is home," jokes guitarist Eric Stein.

So it seems, but the story of the Greenhornes starts at home, sort of.

The original members of the band came together in 1996. All five were from a couple of little southern Indiana towns before they crossed the Ohio line and settled in Cincinnati.

Armed with impressive record collections and considerable enthusiasm, they started playing charging, Nuggets?style garage rock at small clubs around the area, and recorded a great single "End of the Night" b/w "No More" that endeared them to Midwest hipsters.

A debut album "Gun for You" followed in 1999, along with a gig at New York City's annual Cavestomp! Festival. In 2000, they played the CMJ festival. They toured their asses off in a windowless Econoline, and got picked up by Telstar Records after a successful jaunt around the country with the Swingin' Neckbreakers.

Their self?titled second album, came out in 2001. They toured with the White Stripes, they toured alone, and then things got a bit shook up. McKinney quit the band, on good terms, early in the year. The band kept going, minus his distinctive, Animals?style organ licks for almost another year, before Olive and the band parted ways, perhaps not as amiably, although no one is volunteering any information about it.

Stein was drafted as a replacement just in time for the band to record the new album and open for UK garage goddess Holly Golightly on her US tour.

All the changes have wrought an influence on the band's sound. Where "Gun For You" boiled over with the energy of a 1964 frat party, replete with poppy organ hooks and stomping tempos, "Greenhornes" found the band boiling under and pulsing with tension and brooding that unleashed itself in fiery originals and covers of the Animals?by?way?of?Leadbelly prison opus "Inside Looking Out" and the blues chestnut "It's My Soul."

The new album, in turn, finds the band in a more aggressive mode. Singer Craig Fox's aching, weary voice sounds raspier, the guitar riffs are more muscular, the songs tighter. The album also finds the band exploring other instrumental options. Drummer Patrick Keeler blows a mean harmonica on one track, another song is delicately embellished with tasteful touches of harpsichord and Fox plays piano to fill in a few spots.

"We've got a little bit more guitars," offers Stein, to describe the difference.

Fox agrees.

"I'm more comfortable now because I've been playing so long," he says.

"There's no organ," Keeler says, and his band mates chuckle at the obviousness of the statement.

"It's kind of a welcome change," he continues. "It's easier now. It's kind of like starting over."

For Stein, it's not starting over, but starting from the beginning. A friend of Fox's before joining the band, for the past six or so months he has been experiencing for the first time, what the others are already used to.

"We were just friends hanging out in Cincinnati, just hanging out at Craig's house," he says. "His mom made me pizza, we listened to records. Craig said, 'hey you know how to play guitar?,' and I said 'yeah,' and he said, 'hmm....'

"Do you have a job? Do you want to go?" Keeler interjects. "No rent. Let's go! There's free beer and free food at these places."

"No money though," adds Fox, and the others laugh.

Even without the benefit of cold, hard cash, The Greenhornes have found plenty of rewards along the road. They've found a producer (John Curley) and a studio (Ultrasuede) in their hometown that both seem to bring out the best in their sound.

"It works out really well," Keeler says. 'This time we had a lot more time. We could relax."

They have a bona fide garage celebrity in Golightly singing on two tracks on the new album.

"I think we just kind of hit it off because she wanted to do it and we had stuff to do," Keeler explained, "She wanted to use us on some stuff of hers."

Heck, they're even featured in an alcohol commercial - clearly the ultimate goal for any up?and?coming band. Their song "Nobody Love You" appears in a commercial for Jack Daniel's Hard Cola. Band members say everyone who has seen it did so while watching a football game.

None of them have, or appear to need day jobs at this point, and, as usual, they have a full schedule ahead of them.

"This tour goes till the middle of November," Keeler says. "Then we go home for a little bit. Then in January we'll be doing another tour. In February we're talking about going back to Europe."

"We've got a booking agent over there now," Fox comments.

So, with no respite in sight, the Greenhornes seem fated to keep writing triumphant rocking songs about being jilted and lonely and Fox seems destined to keep howling for his lost darlings. That's fine by them.

"It's tradition," Fox asserts.

"It's easier to write about girls that hurt you," Lawrence begins.

"Unresolved crushes," Stein inserts.

"Than like, rainbows," Lawrence ends.

"Actually, we wrote a few happy ones for the new record," Keeler admits. "But they got ripped off right off the bat. They were really terrible."

-The Greenhornes were interviewed in person at the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland.