Artist Interview: Q&A with j.bell
The frontman of Minnesota roots rockers j.bell and the Lazy Susan Band talks about their album Unreliable Witness and upcoming release show—an unusual quadruple bill.
j.bell album artwork for Unreliable Witness
j.bell and the Lazy Susan Band’s latest album, Unreliable Witness, dropped on digital platforms almost 18 months ago, at the onset of the pandemic. Like other artists in their situation, the Minnesota rock ‘n’ roll Americana band had to delay the celebration of that release—but it’s finally happening Saturday, October 2 at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in Saint Paul.
I spoke with bandleader j.bell a few weeks before the big event about his musical roots, his band’s and album’s unusual paths, and his thoughts on navigating the uncertain winter months ahead of us all.
Carol Roth: Tell me a little bit more about yourself—you say you were born on the banks of the Mississippi but that's a pretty long river. Were you a Minnesotan by birth?
j.bell: Yes, Minnesota born and bred! I spent my whole childhood down in Winona and ended up getting a scholarship for college and staying there against my will, which is where I met Brian Zirngible and a bunch of the guys who eventually were the first incarnation of the Lazy Susan Band. I could not wait to move to the Twin Cities after doing some traveling around the country. I love the Twin Cities—always wanted to be here.
j.bell and the Lazy Susan Band. Photo courtesy of the artist.
CR: I understand your band has had some revolving members, but right now it’s a five-piece group and sometimes you play as a trio too. Is Brian your longest-standing bandmate?
JB: Kind of—when this band started in 2001 I was tired of trying to keep a band together, so I came up with the Lazy Susan Band because I’d pick players up as I needed them, like condiments off a lazy Susan, based on how much a gig paid, how much room there was on the stage, if they wanted the gig, and so on. For the first six or seven years it was me and a rotating cast.
I took a break from 2006 to 2013, and when I came back I decided that I didn't want to be in a band without Brian anymore. When he wasn't in the band, I was always asking him questions and playing him demos and asking him to write songs with me. So Brian's the longest-serving member in this incarnation of it, but our bass player Mike did a stint early on; he's a boomerang member.
CR: So you and Brian and Bill Turner make up the trio aspect of your band?
JB: Yeah, Brian and Bill—he goes by $2 Bill Turner—and I are the trio and kind of the core of the band. and we sing three-part harmony. They both play horns—Brian plays trombone, Bill plays trumpet—but Bill also plays keys and Brian plays percussion, like a cajon or a djembe.
CR: So you kind of mix and match during the trio shows?
JB: It's a beautiful disaster, yes.
CR: Like a lot of artists, you had to make a difficult decision when the pandemic hit because your new record was about to come out. Tell me about that.
JB: We spent 2019 writing and learning the songs and doing demos, and we were full-on ready to do a big release in April 2020. We waited right up to the end to see what was going to happen, and of course it got shut down. It was really upsetting. You know how it was: “We’re gonna shut down for two weeks. OK, maybe a month.” We rescheduled the show, like, four times before our friends at the Amsterdam were like, “Let's just see if we're still a club when this opens back up.”
The wheels were in motion to digitally release it on iTunes and everything, so it’s available, but we never got to do any sort of proper release for it, never got to share any of the merchandise or play the album in its entirety.
j.bell. Photo courtesy of the artist.
CR: You mentioned that you took a break and came back together a few years ago. In light of that, was it hard to keep everybody unified and focused during the lockdown?
JB: It was really hard. The five of us didn't get in a room together for eight, 10 months. During the darkest part of winter, Brian and Bill and I decided that we were going to be in each other’s bubbles, and so our families hung out together. I did 64 weeks in a row of livestreaming every Wednesday night, and Brian and Bill would sometimes come over and join me.
I would’ve gone insane and lost all momentum if I wasn't able to see and sing with those guys. So much of what we do is about us singing three-part harmony, and I miss it so much when we don't get to do it. When COVID numbers were really bad and we were full-on quarantining, they wouldn't come over for weeks at a time. It was pretty lonely. It wasn't great.
CR: What would you like to share with readers about this new album, Unreliable Witness?
JB: These last few years we've tried to cross things off our band bucket list. A few years ago I did a record where I wrote and played and sang every note myself, and then Brian and Bill and I wrote a rock opera. Then we realized we've never taken the time to write a group of songs, rehearse them, record full demos, sit with those demos, rearrange them and then go into the studio. That’s what this album is.
CR: A pretty wide range of influences shine through on it—I hear some 90s alternative in there, maybe some 70s southern roots rock. Has your style evolved or has it always been that eclectic?
JB: The bands I like the most cover really wide genres, so I’ve always been drawn to that. My favorite band is Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers, and their first record had a sticker on it that said “this ain't country like Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle ain’t country” and I knew immediately that I was going to love that band.
The country-rock-Americana thing has been a stable ongoing influence, and every album we do highlights a different version of it. When we came back together in 2013 and made $80 Whiskey, that was pretty rootsy Americana all the way through. We even did an alternate take of one of the songs that was really bluegrassy, and Brian emailed the guy that did Bluegrass Saturday Morning on Jazz88 FM, Phil Nusbaum. He listened to the album version and said, “Why would you think this is bluegrass?” but when we showed him the alternate version, he was kind enough to give it some airplay.
The next album swung in another direction, and this latest one is maybe the most poppy rocky album that we've done, but during the pandemic we wrote and demoed another album that's exceptionally rootsy and goes back to the driving country sound of $80 Whiskey.
I first dug into Americana and roots stuff growing up, while trying to figure out what I hated about pop country. My dad started explaining to me what Merle Haggard did, and the Bakersfield sound, and I got turned on to Gram Parsons and Steve Earle and realized there's a whole other world where country music went a different route. Finding a sense of community with people that like that particular range or genre or is always really exciting because it's hard to find. Like where I grew up, when you say you like country music, that means something that I don't like.
j.bell and the Lazy Susan Band. Photo courtesy of the artist.
CR: You guys don't seem to take yourselves too seriously—not serious enough to not have fun. The videos you did during lockdown are really funny, and that slide-in trombone sound on “Hold on Me” is pretty great. My wife heard it and was like, “I'm picturing a car chase in a movie!” I could see that, like driving down a country road knocking over a farm stand. But some of your songs are more sad or contemplative. How do you approach your music—what’s the vibe you're going for?
JB: I don't really think about that when we're writing. But when I compile songs for an album, I try to think about a range of emotion. I try to not have songs feel too serious—I like the idea of not taking ourselves too unbelievably seriously, no matter how important or emotional the songs might be to us.
A lot of our songs are allegorical; “The Devil I Know” is a deep political allegory that we turned into a fun bouncy country song. The first crack at it wasn't like that, it was decidedly not very fun, so we punched it up a bit—sped it up and rearranged it—and it feels better that way; the material comes across a little easier.
CR: What made you choose “Next Best Thing” as your first single off the album?
JB: The band couldn't decide—we had five different votes—so we pulled together a panel of people that have been very supportive of us over the years and sent them the five songs we liked. And “Next Best Thing” came back with the most votes, so it was a mini democratic process.
“Almost Good Enough” came in second, but people wanted to put something more upbeat out first. My vote was “Hold on Me,” which features the trombone, but that got zero votes! We like to feature the horns, because we have them and Brian’s a really enigmatic horn player. But not everybody likes that—there's times when we're playing live and people aren’t necessarily drawn to the trombone right away.
CR: That song is country-sounding to me, but then I was like “Horns in a country song?” And then thought “Oh like ‘Ring of Fire,’ like some Merle Haggard songs” and it dawned on me that horns appear a lot in country—I just don't think of them as a main aspect.
JB: Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers has brass all over the background of their stuff but they don't feature it. We feature it because Brian's a great soloist. I've been into Shovels & Rope for a few years and there's brass in their songs all the time. When I first introduced Brian to them I was like “You're gonna love these guys—there's inappropriate horns everywhere!”
CR: I like your word play, too; in “Next Best Thing,” I went into it thinking she's settling for something, and then you flip that phrase on its head—she's not settling for anything; she's going for the next best thing, and the next and the next. What drives your songwriting—do you fix on a clever turn of phrase and build off it? Do you develop lyrics and melody simultaneously?
JB: Usually I come up with one line, lyrically and melodically, and build off of that. I do really like wordplay; I like things not being terribly spot on; there are usually hints and innuendos here and there. Sometimes it doesn't work—during the livestreams when I was playing “Next Best Thing,” I got comments about the line “She keeps her mouth shut, she's an unreliable witness.” I meant she’s loyal and she's not going to turn you in, but it really rubbed a couple people the wrong way. I explained after the livestream that the line means she’s not going to rat you out to the cops, but it threw some people off a bit.
CR: That's funny because I kind of took that line a third way, like she keeps her cards close to her chest, holding something back in a relationship. I guess it can be taken a number of ways.
JB: For sure.
j.bell. Photo courtesy of the artist.
CR: So, you have a record release show coming up! Four bands all celebrating their releases—was that what you originally planned?
JB: Before it got tanked last year, it was going to be a dual release show with Sam DuBois. He’s fantastic, and our producer Jonathan Earl helped develop his album. But then, there’s a great singer-songwriter from western Wisconsin, Sarah VanValkenburg, who's been kind enough to let me produce all her albums. We started her third one in 2018 but she moved to Austin, Texas for a while, so that's been in the can for years. Quarantine was the perfect time to wrap it up, so adding her to the lineup made total sense. And then our producer Jonathan Earl, when he was in lockdown, recorded his first album in 10 years! So it just kind of worked out that our little orbit of bands all have stuff to celebrate.
CR: This is a loaded question with the delta variant in play—I've already heard of several artists canceling indoor shows—but do you have plans for playing out locally or touring over the fall and winter?
JB: That's a hard question to answer right now. We made the decision a few weeks ago to require proof of vaccination or negative test for the Amsterdam show. I think we'll do that at any large venues where we play indoors. The trio’s toured some this summer but we were fortunate that most of the shows were outside. We're going to keep trying to play, if there's a way for us to be safe and keep other people safe without, like, taunting the delta variant.
CR: I read in the news a few days ago that even the scientists don’t agree on what to do—some are like you just have to get out there, and if you catch it you catch it, while others are like, no no, hold on, it's about to peak, you should stay safe. I have no idea what to do; I sort of make decisions on the fly.
I think in a way it's going to be on artists if venues aren't making a stand, one way or another, or if venues make a stand that's not strong enough for somebody. You guys are gonna have to step up in ways that seem kind of unfair—it’s a lot of pressure.
JB: In my boring day life I'm a public health attorney, so I'm exposed to this stuff all the time. Like you said, nobody really knows; it's their best guess right now. Artists ask me “Is it safe to do this show?” and it's like, nothing's 100% safe. Everyone in our band and in our families is vaccinated. We try to be very open about that to make other people comfortable. We went and saw Fuzzy Math Jazz at the Amsterdam last week and they talked non-stop about it; “We're all vaccinated and we only live with people that are vaccinated, so feel free to come up and talk to us,” and I thought that might be part of the next stage, too; people being very open about here's where I’m at, here's what I do—everybody use your best judgment.
Last winter, Jonathan Earl retrofitted his studio, Farmhouse Records, with closed circuit TV and a different outside entrance to each room so people could come in and record without ever being in the same room together. That’s how we tracked our new group of songs. So if things get bad and we're not able to play again, I think we have enough of a close-knit community where we'll finish that album, make some more videos. We’ll figure out ways to keep going until we can play outside again but boy, I’m knocking on this wooden desk here, hoping that we can keep playing!
CR: Yeah, it was rough. I got deep into livestreams and I tried to make them as important to me as live shows were, but it was a pale imitation. It was a hard year.
JB: It was, but in some ways it was pretty damn cool, because just about any night of the week, you could see something nationally or locally. And sometimes it was such an intimate thing—in artists’ living rooms; Sarah Morris did a couple from her tiny bathroom. To see them try a new song or something … I found that really exciting. But, like everything last winter, it grew old for everybody. We all wanted to see each other again.
CR: You’re right; there were some upsides. I expanded my horizons a lot—I used to just check out a few local acts and not really look too far afield, in terms of genre or geography. But when I was desperate for music options I came across amazing artists in other parts of the country, and music that's more on the ragged edge of Americana versus straight-up country. And some of the livestreams were really, really fun; one of my favorite bands would do a drinking one where they’d take shots when someone donated $25.
JB: And even as we've been back out in the real world, I’m surprised how many people we don't know come up to us at shows and say “Thanks so much for doing that—we looked forward to it every Wednesday night!” We weren’t paying attention, not really realizing what kind of a reach that has—it was very cool.
Catch j.bell and the Lazy Susan Band at the quadruple album release show October 2 at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall!
Buy CDs and merch directly from them and follow their blog for band updates!
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym @taberkeley!
