The YellowHammers’ latest recording is self-titled. With this album, it’s as if they’re brand new, and being introduced; yet the new life they have created is in fact their fourth record. Fixed in an American blend of rock that draws from blues, country, and folk, the band is loose not sloppy, tender not soft, forlorn not pitiful, but always hopeful. This is roots rock from Chicago’s West Side.
The YellowHammers began writing as a trio in 1994 when Terry White (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Rob Pierce (vocals, guitar) and Kevin James (bass, vocals) left Los Angeles and regrouped in Chicago. It was there that they honed a new sound, as well as found two additional members in Phil Levin (drums) and Tom Kneesel (pedal steel, guitar). The melodies that resulted revealed a musical influence from Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, with lyrical influence from Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed. As stated in the Chicago Tribune, their “songs are almost as beautiful as they are haunting.” With each new track, the YellowHammers are adding to a rich catalog of scenes and landscapes teeming with characters that are confused, lost, fallen, sincere, honorable and salvaged on the shoulders of each other.
Chicago music legend Jon Langford produced the band’s latest effort, leaving his unique fingerprint sonically, as well as on the album artwork. Langford came to Chicago via Leeds after creating the iconic English punk band the Mekons in the late 1970s. He has produced and played on recordings by the Old 97s, Kelly Hogan, Sally Timms and Alejandro Escovedo, as well as his own band, the Waco Brothers.
Having shared the stage and studio with artists ranging from Joe Walsh and Billy Preston to Jane’s Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins, the YellowHammers currently perform throughout Chicago, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They plan to tour extensively in support of their new self-titled release, which falls on the heels of 2005’s Satellite, 2000’s All the People Some of the Time, and 1996’s Suffer Fools Gladly.
