Here come the Greenhornes
Greenhornes with White Stripes
Murat Theatre
Sept 9, 8 p.m.
Reserved seating $38.50; 239-5151
In 2001, the White Stripes played a show at Second Story in Bloomington on their “Your Southern Can Is Mine” tour. The show openers were Hoosiers John Wilkes Booze, followed by the Greenhornes, an unfamiliar Cincinnati band that looked like stunt doubles for the Yardbirds and sounded like their contemporaries. When all was played and done, the strength of their introductory set lingered and even dulled the vibrancy of the Whites who followed.
Now, four years later, the Greenhornes have rejoined the now massively successful Detroit Duo, not only on tour but also on the V2 Records artist roster. During a recent interview with NUVO, Greenhornes drummer Patrick Keeler discussed supporting the color-coded duo, what it’s like to utilize a major label while staying D.I.Y. and the trio’s modest and varied side projects.
Although it sounds like a posh development to be out with their friends again, Keeler was quick to set the record straight.
“We’re definitely still doing it ourselves; we’re still in a van driving out to every show. We’re still organizing things. But there is definitely some benefit to playing larger places, like having union people that haul your stuff around.” Other than that, this tour, much like the previous one, has been marked by a lot of hanging out and having fun — just on a larger scale.
The scale of things certainly has changed since the 2001 tour. While those shows were highlighted by the bands hauling their own gear to play for an average of 50 people who threw down $5 to attend, Murat Theatre tickets are closer to $40 a pop. “It’s strange,” Keeler said, “and probably right afterwards we’ll go right back to playing to a couple hundred people for $5. I like playing the smaller clubs and venues.”
Over the past couple of years, the Greenhornes have become an indelible part of the branching Detroit family tree of uncompromising musicians who have achieved breakout success despite the outdated protocol of the major label system. The Greenhornes recently illustrated this with the release of their latest EP — initially available exclusively through iTunes — a venture that Keeler recognizes as being a great way to distribute music. “I may be putting my foot in my mouth, but downloadable, digital media is probably what everything is going to move to, away from hard formats like CDs and vinyl.” Keeler also bets that vinyl will outlive the compact disc.
The EP then received a proper physical release with V2 providing distribution and releasing it with their logo as well as the band’s label, Prize Brigade. “We were going to put the record out ourselves for this tour and Mush Records was going to help us distribute it and then V2 came along and offered and it all came together in like a month and a half, a pretty quick release.”
When discussing the now archaic stigma of “selling out” and currently being involved with the transition of partnership over ownership, Keeler said, “If you would’ve told me [we’d be doing that] 10 years ago when I started off, I would’ve told you you’re stupid. [laughs] I think you find any way you can when you’re making records and you want to put them out. Get as many people as possible to hear your stuff and hopefully they’ll like it. All we want to do is drive around and play shows and the more people who are into seeing the shows the better.”