Shovels & Rope: From A Scratch And A Hope

*****

Thrilling and unpredictable, their combined energy is like a controlled burn that threatens to leap wildly out of bounds, only to shift at the last second into a pile of warmly glowing embers.

Swimmin’ Time’s “After The Storm,” for example, starts with pretty, restrained harmonies and gentle strumming, but as their voices rise, its momentum swells. When Hearst hits an upper-soprano note, the effect is dramatic. Then she dives low, and when they reach and hold a shared high note, it’s like a knockout punch. It’s hard to imagine the song getting any bigger – but then they go a cappella. It’s the definition of a tour de force.

From the bubbly pop undertones of “Bridges On Fire” to the fuzzed-out grunge of “Evil” and the sexy, Fats Domino-meets-“Hail Hail” groove of “Coping Mechanism,” their dynamic interplay and lyrical twists give Swimmin’ Time intriguing depth – and the same sense of risk they exhibit onstage.

One moment, they’re bashing away and shouting like cheeky punks; the next, they’re cheek-to-cheek, singing close harmonies and sounding so sweet, you could swear you’re hearing them fall in love all over again. The sparks jumping between them are almost visible, but so are ’50s-Hollywood tableaux of serenades sung in wisteria-draped gazebos under big June moons.

Except for those sometimes-darker songs, and the fact that they’re also engaged in intricate, finely choreographed instrumental gymnastics, employing multiple body parts to activate a kick drum, snare and hi-hat, keyboard, harmonica, tambourines and various other percussion instruments, plus guitars – some of which have been kept alive through sheer force of will. And duct tape. As if all that weren’t enough, they take turns strumming and thumping as they sing for all they’re worth, instinctively trading high and low parts, their voices swooping and soaring like birds in a mid-flight mating dance.

*****

Cary Ann Hearst is a southern child, all right; even her speech is filled with the melodic cadences and colloquialisms of a Dixie girl. She likes gingham, ruffles and lace, and she can pour so much honeysuckle syrup over a “bless your heart,” the recipient would never detect a note of derision, if Hearst would deliver such a thing. She is not, however, a southern belle – a latter-day plantation princess raised to measure others on a status-and-privilege scale. She’s used to doing the waiting, not being waited on; in fact, she still keeps her Jestine’s Kitchen apron clean, just in case she might need to pick up some shifts at the Charleston eatery where she worked for more than a dozen years.

Michael Trent is a bit harder to peg. He seems more serious, but his jokes, it turns out, are just more subtle. Once they get going, their repartee is a thing to behold – sometimes a downright laff riot. Occasionally laden with the gallows humor that is, after all, their stock in trade.

Their friend Butch Walker, who’s also written with Trent, used Hearst as a backing vocalist and had both The Films and Shovels & Rope open for him on tour, observes, “That couple are about the coolest under pressure that I’ve ever seen, just the way that they handle and carry themselves. It’s very sweet. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Mike stressed … She’s always the loud, happy, fun one and Mike is this stoic, shy guy. But it all works.

“I’ve never been in a room with them where I wasn’t grinning ear to ear,” he adds, “because their positivity and chillness is infectious.”

What makes the story of Shovels & Rope simultaneously ironic and fascinating is that the duo’s very existence was such a desperation maneuver. They had no inkling that turning the album Shovels & Rope into Shovels & Rope would launch them on anything like their current trajectory, which also has included a Letterman appearance, an “Austin City Limits” taping and high-profile bookings at major festivals.

“I’d been spinnin’ my wheels for so long, we were just happy to be making a living and touring,” says Hearst. “The reason that we went in together is because we didn’t want to be apart.”

They struggled for a long time, Walker says, “But they just toured relentlessly, all the time, in the van with the dog. They would pack up the house and be gone for six months at a time.”

Adds Trent, “Our expectations were so low at the beginning, it was like, ‘Stay out of the red.’”

“Do not get pulled over and go to jail,” Hearst injects, laughing.

“Go out for the weekend or a week and break even, or maybe bring 100 bucks home and be able to get back in time for our shift,” Trent expounds.

“Maybe in our former careers, or when we were a lot younger, we had loftier goals,” he continues. “Then we put all that aside and started doing this, without any expectations, and were like ‘No way we’re gonna be playing at Red Rocks opening for The Avett Brothers. We don’t even have real drums; we’re, like, barely hanging on.’ But for whatever reason, once we resigned ourselves to be content with doing things the way we wanted to and being happy about it no matter what, everything just started happening.”

Actually, it started happening because they’re incredibly talented and because O’ Be Joyful, recorded at home, in hotel rooms and even in their van, is such a knockout album, full of well-crafted, well-executed songs with intriguing subject matter and loads of personality. But when they made it, Trent says, “We just thought we were making a new record of new songs. We didn’t know that it was going to do anything besides be a thing that we sold out of the back of our van.”

That was before Dualtone stepped in, offering them a label deal before hearing a note of recorded music. As wary as Trent was of the sausage-grinder, they realized Dualtone’s distribution and promotional arms could reach much farther than the van’s rear doors.

That’s when the couple formalized a management agreement with friend and adviser Paul Bannister, whom Hearst had met in New York while seeking a solo label deal. Just before the album’s summer 2012 release, they also graduated to an RV – though they feared having it photographed for a Charleston City Paper story lest fans think success had spoiled them. Still, after countless hours chasing tour buses while opening for Walker, Hayes Carll (Hearst duetted with him on the lusty “Another Like You,” which ranked No. 1 on American Songwriter’s 2011 Top 50 Songs list) and anyone else they could, they and Plott hound Townes Van Zandt had earned it.

And now, they’re in a bus. Walker laughs when he recalls introducing them to his audience and joking that one day, they’d wind up with his tour bus and crew and he’d be their bus-chasing opening act.

“That’s pretty much what’s fucking happening,” he says. “They’ve got half of my old road crew. I told them a couple of weeks ago, ‘That was real funny, but I’m probably going to end up asking you guys to let me open for you.’”

For the record, they claim it’s just for Townes. Asked if he has his own bunk, Trent replies, “He takes up the community space and forces people to sit on the floor.” Hearst calls the 6-year-old hound “a fame whore,” who hasn’t learned to make himself useful because “he’s too busy getting his belly scratched and signing autographs.”

Some of those scratches might soon come from fellow Americana darling John Fullbright, who’s doing a run of fall shows with them.

“I love those guys a lot,” he says. “That’s one of the bands that I think is just the wave of the future, by way of the past. The songwriting is sooo good. I can’t believe that those two people not only write songs together, but are married. What a perfect world that those two even exist in the same plane … I hate even saying the word ‘genius’ because it gets thrown around all the time, but I really think that they’re doing some really important stuff … Cary writes such sweet ballads, such break-your-heart stuff. I just hope that’s always the case.”