Nashville band with local roots: Picking it up with new album

Pickup Sticks is based in Nashville, Tennessee, but has strong local roots. (Submitted photo)
Pickup Sticks is based in Nashville, Tennessee, but has strong local roots. (Submitted photo)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Understandably, some people do all they can to simply stay afloat during a pandemic, while others find the will to even make music.

In the latter category, count the young gentlemen of Pickup Sticks, based in Nashville, Tennessee, but with strong roots here in Texarkana.

Out of the ashes of a band called Us and the Ship come a few members. That Texarkana band moved to Nashville en masse a few years ago, as did local musician Brandon Smith.

Us and the Ship didn't survive, but the musicians have.

Perhaps fittingly at the end of this year, the alternative pop rock act just released a new single, "Crazy," that's on an album to be released soon on streaming services. On the self-titled album, Smith sings and plays guitar, Daniel Thomason plays guitar and lap steel and sings, Jordan Daley joins on vocals and drums and David Jeans serves as bassist. Skyler House joined them over the summer and will be the main guitar player going forward.

"We were trying to figure out something to do, music-wise," Daley said. He and Jeans worked together, and then he remembered Smith had also moved to Music City. Back in 2017, they got together at Smith's living room, having heard a few of his songs.

As Smith says, they started really hot and put out a few songs in the next year, played shows and recorded. As it happens, marriages and babies arrived so priorities changed a bit. Life changes things so they slowed a bit but persevered.

"We still managed to manage to keep working all through that time," Smith said, but then the pandemic hit.

"We finally this last year, not having a chance to play shows and stuff, in the spring we kind of were buckling down and figuring it out, getting all the pieces together to put out all these songs we recorded," Smith said.

They had the 10 songs ready for an album, as it so happened. Daley calls them "bangers" that, despite their differences, fit together well.

It's a long process, and Thomason devoted many hours to editing, mastering and mixing there at the computer. But the result, they think, hangs together.

"It's kind of a weird album. It's not like you can classify as a genre, because we've got an alternative rock song, and then you've got a country and western Christmas song, then you've got a fast pop punk upbeat song. It's all over the place," Daley said.

It's a total departure from Us and the Ship, they say. Smith says this band is more about the hooks, rather than the more conceptual nature of Us and the Ship.

"Us and the Ship was way more focused on the art of it and the technicality of it, and making music that would satisfy my nerdy sort of idiosyncrasies, stuff like that," Thomason said. "Pickup Sticks is way more about having fun and trying to appeal to a much wider range of people."

It's music to enjoy and get your head nodding. "The first time you hear it, you're into it and that's it," Thomason said.

Smith said in his songwriting, at least, he tries to hearken back to the simplicity and straightforward nature of old country. Simple and structured, that was the idea of the band's songs, Daley said.

"We called it alternative Americana," Smith said, noting Thomason's lap steel work. They're also trying to appeal to the city where they live now, Nashville, Daley said.

And Thomason points out they've become more knowledgeable about Nashville, its history and sensibility. "I think that we wrote music for Pickup Sticks out of that familiarity with the city now," Thomason said. They write from this place, he said.

Nashville, after all, is where the hit makers and so many talented people are, Smith said. There's a huge pool of talented musicians, which encourages them to up their game.

"You're trying to get a song that resonates, that people enjoy and can dig into," Smith said.

Adds Thomason, "What goes right along with that is our maturity. We've all spent years writing music. This album is the culmination of three or four years back writing, maybe more for Brandon, and so it just shows a maturity versus our previous works just being older musicians."

It's been a year since they were able to play a live show, and they hope the situation improves for live music in Nashville this coming year after the COVID-19 vaccine has been out and the pandemic is more under control.

"I'm just along for the ride, I'm ready to play," House said.

Look for the new album on your favorite streaming service starting Jan. 1.

(On the Net: Facebook.com/Pickup-Sticks-273113533182108.)

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