Bird and Byron: New Album, Influences, and the Creative Process
August 2, 2023 - Nashville, TN
by Brooklyn Knight
On July 14th soul-rock duo Bird and Byron released their first album, Bird and Byron. The album features soulful vocals, sweeping guitars, and groovy beats that make you want to get on the dance floor at a jazz club mixed in with their slower, more emotive tracks. I found myself wanting to drive and admire city lights with my windows down while listening to these pieces.
Bird and Byron contains nine tracks that could easily be played in a dimly lit, conversation filled restaurant or at dinner in your own home. The first track that stuck out to me was Me and Mrs. Rose. With lyrics talking about setting your mind free and opening your heart to something unfamiliar, it made me want to let loose and move along to the raw instrumentals. This cinematic track will take you on a ride.
Tennessee Fire’s slow groove brings out feelings of passion. Ringing true to the lyrics, “set fire to love,” it builds a slow burning sensation with powerful, authentic vocals and fierce guitar solos.
As a whole, this album is a delightful mix of soulful jazz and folk influences that will take you on a journey through the highs and lows of love and eventually heartbreak.
I had an opportunity to chat with the duo before their show with The Criticals at The Basement East in Nashville on August 2nd.
What’s some inspiration that drove you to create this album?
Bird (Blake): Nick (Byron) and I collectively listen to a lot of music, so, you know, Nick is usually the one bringing me a lot of new stuff that he discovers. We go through stuff and catch inspiration.
Byron: It’s kind of all over. Different music - soul, blues, world music, but also paintings, too. Western expansion kind of pieces. That’s what inspired me.
Bird: Musically, Aretha Franklin, Arctic Monkeys, Black Keys, more recently a lot of soul stuff Nick’s introduced me to - Johnny Adams.
The song writing process - do you guys lock yourselves in the shower, go away to a cabin somewhere? How does the songwriting process usually look for you guys?
Bird: We’re usually just always writing. Either Nick will come up with a guitar part or have some drums that we pick out that we kind of like and then I might have a lyric in my head that we can start with. Or we kind of get the instrumentation down and then come up with the lyrics. Depends on the song- like Mountain Top on the album was put together when Nick came up with the guitar part and I was like “oh, I wrote something cool last night, let’s put something on top of it.”
Does being close ever get in the way of the creative process or does it help the communication flow?
Bird: We live with each other, so it’s just like the troubles of living with one another. When it comes to songwriting we just want the song to win. We want the song to be the best it can be. We’re like brothers.
What drew you guys to move out to Nashville from Columbus?
Byron: I went to Belmont for college in Nashville for four years. I loved it when I moved down. I think that just stuck with us. We were in Los Angeles for a stint before COVID, that happened, and then we moved back to our hometown, you know, made the band keep working. I think the situation kinda presented itself and we wanted to - I think creatively, felt like in Nashville we could really thrive.
What genre do you say you are? Sure, you can google what you’re labeled as, but what do you like to describe your music as?
Byron: There’s a characteristic that describes us really well, but genre-wise we’re just a mesh of everything that we love. Soul, blues, rock, some folk influences. We get inspiration from hip-hop, too.
Bird: I think that what we enjoy really comes out and I really enjoy some nice boom bap hip-hop drums like Jay Dilla style. It all comes together. By My Side (single) is pretty much a boom bap song with sweeping guitars and an acoustic section.
So, touring. How do you feel? Are you excited about that? How’s it going?
Bird: It looks like next year will be a really big year for us. We’re getting more opportunities. It hasn’t fully fledged out yet, but next year will be a really big year for us.
How does it feel to play hometown shows vs. playing on the road?
Byron: I feel like there’s a level of comfortability in a hometown that may be beneficial or may not. When we did a run in Texas I felt like we were really meshing with the new band and there’s a raw determination that made the songs better. We were really starting to plateau and then our tour ended. I feel like we’ll thrive the more we’re out on the road.
Bird: I like going into a show with a challenge. Maybe there’s not a lot of people here that we know and we just want to impress folks. Playing in Columbus, a lot of those people have seen us already, even though we’re playing new songs, but I like seeing new faces and people being like, “Who the hell are these guys?” and blow their minds, which is fun.
What are some pre-show rituals of yours?
Bird: I do some basic vocal warmups. Today I exercised and I’m feeling more mellow than usual. I need to figure out a routine.
Byron: Today I listened to some vinyl for a while and got inspired that way. I’ve been getting into Creedence Clearwater Revival lately. Then I play some guitar.
If you guys had a chance to collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Bird: I used to say Mitch Mitchell, the drummer from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, I thought that would be cool. Producer wise, maybe Quincy Jones back in the day. It would be sweet recording in one of those big Columbia studios.
Byron: I feel like one of my biggest guitar heroes is Charlie Megira. He sadly passed away in his 40s. I mean, he was at the top of his game and he’s inspired so much of my guitar playing. So being able to sit down with him and trade guitar licks would be amazing.
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Being able to sit down and chat with some of the most down to earth people was so refreshing. They immediately brought an air of comfort upon meeting them and you can truly feel the passion and enthusiasm for music radiating from them. The following show was truly electric. Be sure to catch Bird and Byron’s set at Rocktober Fest in Detroit, MI on October 21st.
*Photos by Daphne Stubblefield
