Tomorrow (June 14), Jenny Don’t and the Spurs will release their new album, marking a significant and bittersweet career milestone. The new album will be their first after losing longtime drummer Sam Henry to cancer in 2022. Instead of letting the tragedy sideline them, the band pushed forward at the same time forging a new path and honoring Henry’s legacy. Today, American Songwriter is proud to premiere Broken Hearted Blue in its entirety a day early.
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Bandmates Jenny Don’t (Guitar/vocals), Kelly Halliburton (bass), and Christopher March (guitar) added Buddy Weeks to the lineup before forging onward. The new configuration of Jenny Don’t and the Spurs enlisted Collin Hegna (Brian Jonestown Massacre, Federale) to produce the album, giving it its cinematic sound.
Ahead of the release of Broken Hearted Blue, Don’t and Halliburton—the married couple at the heart of the band—sat down with American Songwriter to discuss the new album.
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs Reveal the Influences Behind the New Album
Broken Hearted Blue is a musical tapestry that blends several eras, sounds, and genres. During the conversation Don’t and Halliburton revealed some of the major influences behind the 10-track collection.
“We’re all into instrumental surf and that shows through especially in Christopher’s guitar effects and his pedals and stuff. Add to that some classic country and some moodier harder stuff like some Chris Isaak and The Gun Club, things like that,” Halliburton said.
“The Gun Club, Chris Isaak, we’ve been listening to a lot. We love Creedence. When We’re on tour we’re always listening to Creedence. Also, on ‘You’re What I Need’ I tried to immolate Johnny Paycheck a little bit, his songwriting style,” Don’t added.
“First and foremost, we’re music fans,” Halliburton explained. “So, everything is going to kind of worm its way into our songwriting. Christopher and I are pretty avid record collectors. Jenny and I are married and we own a house together and, at our house, we probably have about 12,000 records. It would be hard to listen to that much music and not have that creep into our songwriting.”
Adding Buddy Weeks to the Band
After Sam Henry’s passing the band had a meeting to discuss their future. Finally, they decided that quitting would be a disservice to Henry’s time with the band. So, they made the hard decision to fill his place and push on. Jenny Don’t explained how Buddy Weeks became the new member of the Spurs.
“We had a bunch of mutual friends in the music scene in Portland but we surprisingly didn’t know each other. Like, I knew who he was but we never really crossed paths musically that much. So, I had called him when we had decided collectively between Kelly, Christopher, and I that we were going to continue playing music, after Sam’s passing,” Don’t recalled.
“I started putting feelers out there letting people know we were going to continue and Buddy’s name kept coming up. So, I called him and it didn’t work out at first,” she said. “So, we played with somebody else for a while at first but it wasn’t really a good fit. So, I came back around to Buddy and I was like, ‘Hey would you be down to give it a shot with us?’ and he was like ‘Perfect timing.’”
Listening to Broken Hearted Blue will show how well he fits into the band musically. However, it’s more than that. He quickly became part of the family that is Jenny Don’t and the Spurs. “We hit it off right away, he’s really good touring with, too. He’s just like a really good fun nice guy and he’s a killer player,” Don’t said.
Jenny and Kelly’s Favorite Songs from Broken Hearted Blue
“I think it would be a tie between ‘Broken Hearted Blue’ and ‘Bones in the Sand,’” Don’t said when asked about her favorite songs on the album. “But I also like ‘Unlucky Love.’ I like this album a lot because it’s a very cohesive album but the songs are all very different,” she added.
“I think I like ‘Broken Hearted Blue’ and I like ‘You’re What I Need,’” Haliburton replied to the same question.
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs Honor Sam Henry with “Bones in the Sand”
Bones in the Sand is a tribute to Sam Henry. But, it’s more than a song about mourning. “It’s saying goodbye to a friend and giving him kind of a tribute but also looking to the future,” Halliburton said. “We do have this fire burning in us and we do have to do what we do,” he added.
“We definitely wanted to have something dedicated to Sam on this album since this is the first full-length that we’ve done without him,” Don’t said of the song “But we also really didn’t want the album to be sad and just have that be heavy on everyone, us included. Sam wasn’t really a sad person either. So, it didn’t feel appropriate to say ‘Okay this is our grieving album,’ or something like that,” she explained. “We also didn’t want to be like ‘This is a song about the loss of our friend’ because I don’t want to dictate how someone else hears a song and I want it to mean whatever it means to the listener.”
Then, she shared her personal interpretation of the song. “For me, it’s kind of like you’re going through this loss and you’re saying goodbye. But we’re all also very driven and there’s this thing inside of us to where we can’t stop doing what we’re doing. So, it’s kind of acknowledging the loss and saying goodbye and then looking ahead as well without forgetting the past.”
Broken Hearted Blue will be available everywhere tomorrow via Fluff and Gravy Records
Featured Image by Julia Varga
