Up Close with Steve Tenpenny
(Interviewed
on September 14, 2004)
Genre:
Alt-Country
PC: When did you begin your music career?
ST: "I guess I could say that my music career really started during college. I started playing the guitar around my senior year of high school, but didn't really pursue it during that time. I came to college in Austin and really started playing a lot for friends my freshman year. I think that they all got so sick of me sitting around the dorms bothering them that they finally started encouraging me to look for gigs and get a band together. This is about the time I really started writing songs. My buddies Graham Sones and Robert Henry hooked me up with my first acoustic show downtown at the Red Eyed Fly. Afterwards I finally decided to try and put a band together. James (bass), Dustin Ballard (former fiddle player), and I started playing some shows together. We played 40 Acres Fest on UT campus, badly, and the rest is history I guess. It's really hard for me to consider my music "career" actually beginning until we released Westbound Sun this last March. It's really hard to have a music "career" without a record..."
PC: Who are your main musical influences?
ST: "Wow, this is always one of the toughest questions to answer. Really whatever blows my hair back. Influences come from all over the place. I guess if I was to list a group of songwriters and performers, it would look something like this: Steve Earle, John Fogerty, Jay Farrar (Sonvolt), Billy Joe Shaver, John Prine, Joe Ely, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Waylon, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Chris Knight, Jack Ingram, Reckless Kelly, Van Morrison, Jackopierce, Patty Griffin, Ernest Tubb, etc. etc.... My influences are pretty broad. I was always a big fan of all types of music and I think I try and draw one way or the other from all of them..."
PC: What approach do you take when writing your songs? Do you have any specific routine?
ST: "I'm kind of a different type of songwriter I think. A lot of people are just natural born poets that can basically turn anything into a good song. They write songs almost every day and they have hundreds and hundreds of them. I'm more of the type of person that can be greatly influenced by certain specific things. I might not write a song for two months, but then I'll sit down when something hits me and have an entire song done in twenty minutes, music and everything. I usually write the tune first, then fit it with the words. Some people do it just the opposite. Songwriting is a feel thing. It's so personal. I just have to find the things that hit me in the face..."
PC: I've got four songs.If you don't mind, I was wondering if you could go over how they came about or what was going at the time.
"Texas Girl"
ST: "When writing this song, I definitely wrote the tune first. i wanted a good roots rock song to kick off the album and I had just had a conversation with a friend about how much better looking the women in Texas are compared to the rest of the world. Now I'm talking on the whole. Of course there's beautiful women everywhere, but you can't walk down the street in any city in this state without seeing a drop dead gorgeous girl. Also I had just started liking a new girl and the combo just fit..."
"Annie's Song"
ST: "I always consider this my foreshadowing, or ESP song. I wrote this tune about a buddy of mine who was going through a lot of things with his girl who had just left him, and then after the fact, I ended up going through some of the same stuff. Mine wasn't nearly as bad, but none the less I realized why I wrote this song. Also, for the record, this song has absolutely nothing to do with John Denver..."
"Train To Nowhere"
ST: "Around the time I wrote Train, a lot of people around me were going through some crazy things. A girl that I had known growing up had just had a baby with a guy who bailed on her, a person I knew from high school ended up in jail, and I was right in the middle of deciding after college which direction my life was going to go. I couldn't believe how crazy people's lives could get in such a short period of time, and I felt like the entire world was just losing its mind. It just seems like so many people take the obvious wrong path most of the time and I don't really understand why. I guess I was venting..."
"Look Again"
ST: "This is one of the earlier songs I've written. I wrote this tune with my best friend from when we were little, Nathan Nichols. We grew up together and we are still just as close. He is an outstanding songwriter as well, and this was one we were proud of. We wrote this song about a few friends that we had that seemed to be rushing into life. To put it in a nutshell, we were just a couple of really young college guys who didn't have girlfriends at the time, our buddies did, and they were talking about marriage already. We were basically just afraid of losing our buddies and the fun being over. I think all guys go through that with their friends. To tell you the truth, we were probably just jealous. At least that's what our now happily married buddies would say, and I might even believe them..."
PC: If you had to pick a couple of songs you have written that you are most proud of, what would they be and why?
ST: "I'd probably say Annie's Song is my favorite off the new record, as far as songwriting goes. That's the one that I think I'm the most proud of. I think it's the one that has the most soul to it. I like songs that find the happy medium between being completely literal, and still trying to find the hidden meaning of what the writer is talking about. I think that song, along with Star-Crossed, are probably the two on the record that hit that the most. I'm working on a few new ones that I think will be good, but those are the ones that come to mind right now..."
PC: Where do you want to be in the next few years with your music career? Any long term goals?
ST: "You know, I have become so very patient with this whole thing. I used to want everything to happen so fast. I think we have come a long long way since our record was released, and that was only in March of this year. I want to constantly go in the forward direction, but I'm very patient. I actually like this business. It's a tough business, but I think the most valuable lesson I've learned is that it is a business. If you do this, you have to be for real. There is no half way in this business if you want to succeed. I'd like to play on the same stage as Steve Earle. That's a big goal. I'd like to play in front of 10,000 people someday, stop singing in the middle of one of our songs, and have them sing the rest of for us. I'd like to be able to comfortably support five guys in a band, and their families, and let them do what they love to do, which is play music. I'd just love to be in this business forever if I can. I feel very fortunate to even be where I am now, so baby steps..."
PC: What's your fondest career memory so far?
ST: "I think probably seeing the faces of my friends and family at our CD release parties. When the record came out, people that I had known forever were unsure of what to expect because I wasn't one of those kids that grew up trying out for Star Search, or even really singing. I wasn't in choir or anything like that. I think a lot of people were like "Steve Tenpenny does what?!" When we played our CD release parties in different towns, I think a lot of people were surprised that we were for real. That was pretty cool. I also sang at my sister's wedding for her first dance. I won't ever forget that. Oh and also getting to meet Billy Joe Saver. That was awesome..."
PC: Do you have a preference when it comes to playing, whether it's acoustic or electric?
ST: "It just depends on my mood. They are both so different. Our electric show is very loud, active, crazy, and fun. We work our tails off on stage. I love it! I enjoy acoustic sets a great deal, but they've got to be for the right crowd. I love acoustic sets when it is an attentive crowd. If they're sitting down listening to what I'm doing up there, then I love it. If it's an active and crazy crowd, sometimes it's hard to keep their attention without a screaming guitar and drums. I guess it just depends on the venue. I love them both for what they are..."
PC: Decribe what Texas music is all about to you?
ST: "I love it because it makes you feel a part of something. I like having a genre of music that sets us apart. I don't get too involved in the Texas vs. Nashville war, but I do love what people before our time have pioneered in this state. There is so much talent down here and I love the fact that we can put together a years worth of tour dates, not leave our region, and never once exhaust a market. It's ours and I love it..."
PC: When you are on the road, what CD's would be found in your CD player?
ST: "Man that could end up being a long answer. Sometimes it depends on which member of the band is in the front seat. Billy Joe Shaver, Merle Haggard, Sonvolt, Guns and Roses, Steve Earle, Ragweed, Patty Griffin, Reckless Kelly, Jack, Chris Knight, Todd Snider, the Motorcars, George Devore, Ryan Adam's old Whiskeytown, the Bottlerockets, Fallon Franklin, Blake Powers, Pat, Robert Henry, Randy Rogers, Lost Trailers, Mike McClure, Matt Powell, Bleu, Wade, Brandon Ryder, JC Davis, Fogerty.... you name it. If you're asking right now, I think Chris Knight's "Pretty Good Guy" is in there. It's one of my favorites..."
