“We’re developing a new, top-secret hybrid of music called “folk rock” quips Allison Pierce. “We think it’s gonna be bigger than rap-metal”.
Meet The Pierces. Sisters Allison and Catherine were raised in rural Alabama by bohemian parents. (“They were hippies” stresses Catherine, “but they were also Christians, so that still gave us something to rebel against”). After attempting a career in dance that was supposedly under the auspices of the strictest Russian and French ballet masters, the restless twosome migrated to Nashville and then on to hipster heaven: New York’s East Village, to pursue music. “We were too drunk the first year we moved here to notice any cultural differences” laughs Allison. “But when we woke up in the gutter in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, yes, we were quite shocked”!
Though Catherine became romantically linked to a local rock deity, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., the Pierces musical union flourished independent of the Strokes supernova. (Editor’s note: they did tour in support of Hammond in the UK to rave reviews.) Which brings us to their scintillating debut disc, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge; a collection of songs rife with stories of passion, murder, deceit, lesbianism, ménage a trois and other curious activities. “Well, there is a bit of truth in every tale…” reveals Allison.
Rendered in a folk rock style which traces linage to the early 1960s’ sounds of Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, Ian & Sylvia, and Peter, Paul & Mary, the Pierces ply their craft with menacing lyrical twists which would do Edgar Allen Poe proud. The torrid two-some, backed by a sturdy rhythm section, pepper their Tales with bells, whistles, glockenspiels, mandolins and assorted acoustic instruments that you might find in grandma’s attic.
The Pierces speak of their producer and sometime co-writer with great reverence. “Roger Greenawalt is our Guru” claims Catherine. “We discovered each other over finger foods at Ben Kweller’s Christmas party”. Tales…does indeed sound as if the band knocked it out in one live, perspiring session, however all the Pierces will admit to is “not all of it was live… but we were very sweaty”.
Evoking light-hearted lascivious comparison to Randy Newman’s classic “You Can Leave Your Hat On” with a disco twist, “Lights On” weaves images of cross-dressing and sex under bright lights. “That was Prince inspired” confesses Allison. “Boring” their mocking homage to the Big Apple jet set is rendered by both sisters in a monotone delivery that would have made Grace Jones green with envy (think back to Ms. Jones’ 1980s deadpan reading of Iggy Pop’s morose anthem of the doomed “Nightclubbing”).
In Vaudeville mode Catherine’s campy “Boy in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” may or may not refer to Mr. Hammond as she emphasizes the lyric “I swore I would never fall in love with a boy in a rock ‘n’ roll band…”
We report, you decide.
~ Tom Semioli
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THE PIERCES' THIRTEEN TALES OF LOVE AND REVENGE is out now on Lizard King Records.
http://www.thepiercesmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/thepierces
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