On the night of Saturday, March 23, just as the fever-pitch crescendo of Big Ears – AC Entertainment’s celebrated international experimental music festival – was beginning to peak downtown with the more hardcore attendees preparing themselves for an all-night drone experience, a very different kind of party was starting at the Outpost in Happy Holler.
There, two grinning Lenoir City boys clad in cowboy boots and white denim hit the stage to lead an all-star local band through a rip-roaring set of alt-country and folk-rock songs culled from the pair’s last five years together, as well as debut songs from their brand new full-length sophomore release, “Riding High.” The name of the ebullient duo is Pale Root, and they played that evening to a packed house of family, friends and local fans.
Pale Root, for most of its tenure, has been the acoustic folk duo of Aaron Freeman on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Jordan Burris on harmony vocals and lead guitar – although both men write all parts of songs for the project and fluidly switch roles as needed.
“Riding High” is a rich collection mixing Appalachian folk, rocking Americana and classic country. The songs on the album run the gamut from brooding (“Corners”) to hopeful (“Morning Light”) and remorseful (“Anymore”). “Balsa Wood,” “Wild and Willing” and “Fade” all have a loose, warm sentimentality and groovy tones that would have fans of acts as diverse as The Band, Scott Miller and even the jammy Acoustic Syndicate stand up and take notice – as well as enjoy.
Talking to Burris about their influences, it wasn’t surprising to hear him mention Jeff Tweedy and Willie Nelson in the same breath. Burris and Freeman agree their songwriting isn’t going for anything particularly stylistic or political, but it is rather largely personal, relational and experiential.
“You have these songs, and they become these little islands or little beacons of little things you were going through together,” Burris explains.
Although both hail from Lenoir City, Burris had graduated and left the community shortly before Freeman had even begun high school. Still, they knew a lot of the same folks – like Asher Smith, who has run the front-of-house sound at the Bijou Theatre as well as for his own sound company. Aged between the Pale Root fellows, Smith attended high school with both and agreed to engineer and co-produce this new record along with them.
The package art is DIY and community-based, too; Burris majored in art in college and provided the drawing for the cover of “Riding High” (as well as the painting that graces the front of their self-titled 2015 album. Friend Tara Kneiser took the promo photo of the two on the backside of the album. “As far as a narrative to me,” Burris says, “it’s kind of cool. Like, we all knew each other when we were young and then came back together to do this.”
Going back to the inception of Pale Root, Burris had been around town playing solo and with different folks when one night Freeman caught him out with friends. (It’s hazy, but they believe it was Boomsday in 2011.) “It took a while to get together, but once we did, we realized we sounded good together,” Freeman says. “And [we] just grooved from there and decided to do that first and rode on from there.”
They both credit their unique practice schedule for strengthening their musical bond. Whereas many local bands practice once a week or twice a month, Pale Root has two writing sessions every week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are “write nights,” in which the pair crafts and then tightens its sound. “The process is really quick once we get rolling,” says Freeman.
“We would hit the heavy stuff the first night,” says Burris about the process of playing and then teaching songs to one another. He says that they will sit on the tracks for a day, describing that in-between Wednesday as crucial to the process. Each will be at their respective home tinkering with the other one’s songs, sending voice memos back and forth, sometimes with different arrangements. Eventually, they’re ready to add other elements into the mix.
They began playing live at first as a duo, performing several times at places like Barley’s in the Old City, Rhythm ‘N’ Blooms and the Lawn Chair Concert Series and further honing their sound with each successive gig. They began adding other instrumentalists on their first album, which was produced by Scott Minor at Wild Chorus.
This time around, with some of the same players back in the fold but having the time to play around more, they found themselves able to do more inventive things – like, for example, the semi-psychedelic and jazzy lead-in jam to “Corners.” “[Minor] gave us a lot of exploratory leisure to roam around,” Burris says.
That spirit of camaraderie continued into the release show at the Outpost. It was clear the band had tightened through the experience. One element that really enhanced the set was the crack live band Burris and Freeman had assembled behind them; it included fiddler Evie Andrus, omnipresent and fully booked on a weekend that also included multiple sets at Big Ears and a taping of a spot for an “American Ninja Warrior” episode in Atlanta; local piano legend Ben Maney, known for his work with Jenna and Her Cool Friends, Countless Sheep and more; internationally renowned local bassist Daniel Kimbro; and Jake Smith of opener Jubal rejoining the stage for lead-guitar duties.
The band rocked out every song for their rambunctiously dancing and clapping friends and family, many of whom had been avid supporters of Pale Root’s Kickstarter campaign to fund the album. (“Kickstarter gives you the opportunity to be more creative, and people like to help – and they like to be asked to help,” Burris says about the campaign.) The crowd skewed to the mid-30s, with many folks having brought their small children for a rare late night out. One young girl took a picture with Freeman after midnight, and her parents captioned it that she’d gotten to stay out “all the way until ‘tomorrow.’” Great fun seemed to be had by all, though, regardless of age.
So what’s the next step for Pale Root? The duo has played mostly regionally. Freeman is single and works as a brewer and bartender at Abridged Beer Co. in Bearden. Burris works at Little River Trading Co. and has a wife and three small children, but he says he can see the band carving out a doable niche for themselves along the regional circuit and in the seasonal festival scene for several months out of the year. “Eventually we are gonna do a little more,” Burris says. “My goal in life has always been to get on a little festival circuit … It’s our goal for this to be the job.”
“Riding High” is now available on all major streaming and download-for-purchase platforms.
