Biography

The story of Rust County Electric (as I remember it, which might not be completely true or accurate) by Paul D

I was done. I had given up and quit. I couldn't throw anymore of my life at music. It just wasn't for me anymore.

Then came realization, relaxation, acceptance, and content. My fears of the unknown melted away and I began the hear a sound. The symphony featured big guitars, long songs, and lots of space to roam. I wanted to play and sing my songs, but I needed the right people to help me get to a place where I could do both. It would take time, but I had that now.

In the summer of 2009, I ran into Dave Osterle at the Blind Pig. After the normal pleasantries, I asked him if he would ever be interested in drumming in a band other than Bull Halsey. Ten minutes later (I'm guessing on the actual time, we all know that it could have easily been twenty or thirty minutes), I had heard all about how busy he was and how there was no way he could be in another band. When I asked, "what if the band was mine and it was a low pressure situation?", Dave's reply was "sure, I could do that". He was the first person I asked and I was exited that he had said yes.

Fast forward a few months. I was accompanying Jeni Lee for a show at the Crazy Wisdom coffee house when I met Dave Brandt. He was accompanying his wife (Rochelle Clark) on guitar, banjo, and mandolin (I believe) during her set. I was immediately struck by his ability to play the "right" part on every song, whether it be simple or flashy, on multiple instruments. Any musician will tell you that this skill is highly sought after when looking for bandmates... and invaluable to the functionality of a band. I remember asking Jeni Lee if she thought he'd be interested in playing in a loud rock'n'roll band with me. I think her answer centered somewhere around, "you'll never know if you don't ask". I spoke with Dave for a few minutes (I spent most of this time lavishing praise on his hair) and asked if he wanted to play in my band. He said yes.

Two Daves on board, one more to go. My search for a bass player named Dave lasted a few weeks. I was completely enamored with the thought of saying (at rehearsal), "Dave... that's not the right part!" and having three faces stare blankly in my direction. A guy can dream, right?

Weeks or months went by. I don't remember. I think that I went to Brandon Calhoon's show at the Berkley Front in an attempt to lure Carl Yute into playing bass in my band (I had given up on finding a Dave at this point). At the show, I saw Steve Heinecke standing in the corner. I remembered Steve as the bass player from Vintage Grand. People didn't really "see" Vintage Grand play. It was more like a "run to the back of the room" situation considering the volume that Garrett and company played at. They were great... from twenty feet away. I remembered how impressed I was by Steve and the drummer's (can't remember his name) ability to hold down the rhythm during Garrett's forays into rock god guitar oblivion. Carl Yute is an awesome bass player, but Steve would be perfect for what I had in mind. So, I spoke with him, gingerly poking around to see if he was in a band or wanted to be in one (still being somewhat afraid of rejection or coming off like a vulture). He wasn't, he did, I told him about my semi-formed band and he said yes (then, he politely declined my request that he change his name to Dave... and my subsequent requests for the following few weeks).

So, I had my band. It wasn't quite complete in my mind (I'll get to that later), but we had enough to start laying the foundation. And that we did, beginning at the end of January in 2010. I had some songs already... and I wrote more. I literally had one come to me in a dream (see the VAULT for more info). We had a lot of fun being a Sunday afternoon band and taking our time.

Eventually, we had to play a show and give our new band a proper test run. So, in May when Eric Koslowski asked about playing a show at the Berkley Front, we decided it was time. There was one problem... we hadn't named our band. We had discussed the fact that we were going to need a name as all bands do, but hadn't really given it too much thought. Now, we had a show booked, but no band name. Here's the actual contents of the text I sent to the guys on May 25th, 2010 (yes, I fully comprehend the level of weirdness that I'm exposing by admitting that I still have this text... and was able to find it on my phone).

Dear band, are any of these worth a damn?... I won't be sad if none of them get picked... it's just a starting point.
Ditch Mystic, Larchmoor, Kings County, Weld Orchestra, Ditch Transmission, Arc/Weld, Ditch Hymnal, Colonial Electric, Rust County Electric, Larchmoor Arc, the Black Rust Band, Weld Electric

The choice was actually pretty easy. Rust County Electric was on everybody's short list of the names they liked.

So, we played a couple of shows. Our first show at the Berkley Front was great... our second show (at Jukes in Grand Rapids) was okay. Thankfully, Jeni Lee sang harmonies with me at both these shows, helping to get over my insecurities on vocals. Something was still missing though. As a band, we had discussed adding either another guitar player or possibly a keyboard player (which may come as no surprize to people that know me, given my affection for the Drive-By Truckers and Lynyrd Skynyrd). Many of the songs were written with guitar harmonies in mind and we needed a third instrument to bring these to complete fruition. However, we had decided that we didn't want to just start asking people to play. We were going to wait until the right person came along and, eventually, he did.

Ben Vermeylen had recently stepped away as a full-time member of Whitey Morgan and the 78s. I wanted to ask him to play earlier in the spring/summer, but I knew that he was too busy to be in another project. In the fall of 2010, I asked Dave O if he could talk to Ben and invite him out for a rehearsal. Ben came in and dazzled us with not only his playing ability (which we were alreeady aware of), but also his ablility to seamlessly work parts into already completed songs to make them better. Ben played a short set with us in October at the Savoy (after one or maybe two rehearsals) and everyone walked off stage feeling great.

We booked a weekend in late December at Big Sky Recording in Ann Arbor to record our first album. Gregg Leonard was originally going to engineer and produce the album (Michigan was a stop on Gregg's trip from Los Angeles to Australia). A week before we were set to record, he had to cancel due to a schedule conflict with work. We decided to keep the date and work with Geoff Michael. When we arrived at the studio, we found out that it would be Keith, not Geoff recording us. In all honesty, Geoff could have told me that my mom was working the board that weekend... I wouldn't have cared. We had a fire in our guts and were ready to record. Most of the songs only took of takes. We overdubbed some of our guitar parts, but even these went quickly. Keith did an amazing job and we walked away from the studio with the all the instrumentation done for seven songs (41 minutes of music).

Winter continued and spring came. The record was put on hold while I prepared for my comprehensive exams (for my PhD program). We recorded vocal tracks in February and April. Geoff Michaels helped me tremendously to be confident in my voice. Ben sang harmonies, then Jeni Lee came in and added more harmonies. They really did an amazing job. We worked on mixing throughout the summer (with three electric guitars, this becomes somewhat of a laborious process) and at the time I am writing this, we only have a few final tweaks to make to the mixes. We've tentatively named the record "Ghosts and Pride". We've decided that initially, we are only releasing the album digitally (iTunes, Emusic, etc.). It should be available sometime soon. If there's enough demand for CDs or maybe even LPs, we'll print them later.

Heading forward, we've actually changed gears for a bit. I wrote a few songs that are somewhat alt-country (gah!), roots-rockish (double gah!), and country (please no!). So, we've swapped out the electric guitars for banjo, pedal steel, and acoustic guitar. Heading into the fall, we're hoping to record the songs (with Garth Girard) and release album #2. Check out the VAULT for some rehearsal tracks and live versions of these songs. However, we know that this is just a phase... we have more new "rock" songs on the horizon.