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SONG BIZ
Songwriter Profile
D u s t i n W e l c h
Verses from Tijuana Bible
By Dan Kimpel
In the hands of Dustin Welch a banjo possesses the ferocious firepower to
confront abrasive electric guitars and hard-hitting staccato snares. “It can
do a lot more that the three-finger bluegrass type stuff,” says Welch. “It can
have a pretty evil sound if you want it to.”
On his new CD, Tijuana Bible, Welch, (who also plays acoustic and gut
string guitar on the tracks), was joined in a home studio in Austin, TX, by a
tight coterie of sympathetic players who injected acoustic authenticity and
razor-edged electricity in only three days of live sessions with minimal overdubs.
Welch’s sound absorbs elements of his recent past, when he was a banjoist
and resonator slide guitarist with a Celtic punk rock band the Scotch
Greens. “That whole punk rock world I was playing in was so interesting to
me,” he says. “I had never listened to that kind of stuff, and sight unseen, the
band hired me to come out and play with them.”
With his solo debut, Whiskey Priest, Welch threw down his gauntlet of
searing song craft and wild-eyed fervor. On his second CD, he solidifies his
role as a facile storyteller with a profound gift for inhabiting characters: the
preposterous braggart in “Jolly Johnny Junker” and his grizzled kinsman
in “Lost at Sea” who rants “Somewhere
God is in a casket/The dogs
are all circling around.”
A voracious reader, Welch draws
from a far-flung repository of literary
inspirations. The intimate “St. Lucy’s
Eyes” for example, references
the sacred mysticism of a Christian
martyr from the third century who is
often depicted holding her eyes on
a platter. “They tried to to kill her
by drowning, stoning and burning
her. Finally they gouged her eyes
out and she lost her power,” he explains.
“Party Girl” is illuminated in flickering,
impressionistic freeze frames
that make it a natural for film and
television usages, something Welch
––who has friends in the film community––is
quite interested in. “I
intentionally tried to write that differently,”
he says. “It is primarily
imagery, so it works with the visual
element. With some songs you’re
telling a story or talking about internal
conflicts. ‘Party Girl’ is pictures.”
Welch grew up around consummate songwriters. His father Kevin is revered
in what would eventually evolve as the Americana genre. In the mid-
‘90s, set adrift from their major label deals, he and a group of singer-songwriters
founded an independent label, Dead Reckoning Records. Dustin,
also an indie artist, continues this tradition with Super Rooster Records.
Dustin Welch was raised in Nashville, TN. “The cool thing about being
able to grow up around people who were stars was that I’d get to know them
on the personal side first. They were family friends.
“As I got older” he continues, “I appreciated what they did, but it took a
while to realize how special that was. Getting to know them more on a personal
level has allowed me to understand that being a big star is not what
makes you a good musician or songwriter. I could see the work ethic. In
Nashville, it’s nine-to-five business in a lot of ways.”
For the past year and a half, Welch has volunteered for the Texas chapter
of the Soldier Songs & Voices program, a national organization he helped
found. Giving voice through music to returning veterans from the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq is the mission. “When they work on songs, that is all they
are thinking about,” he says. “It gives them another outlet.”
He says the experience is rewarding and humbling. “No matter how many
songs you’re writing about hope and inspiration, you’re still getting up in front
of an audience every night saying,’ Hey people pay attention to me.’ I know
how to write songs and I wanted to see if that could help these veterans.”
It was imperative for Welch to commit Tijuana Bible to audio, both as a
reason for touring and to chronicle of the experiences and emotions that
enrich his songs. “It’s an actual recording of a period of my life,” he confirms.
“That’s why Thomas Edison called it ‘a record.’”
Contact Brian O'Neal or Cary Baker at Conqueroo,
http://conqueroo.com
30 January 2013 www.musicconnection.com
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