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Moonlight Towers unveil new CD tonight at Antone’s
The rock band is dead. That’s what we heard at the end of last year when not a single guitar/guitar/bass/drums album landed on Billboard’s list of the 25 best-selling albums of 2010. But James Stevens of Moonlight Towers is not buying the doom talk. “Everyone I know is into rock ’n’ roll,” said the Austin band’s singer-songwriter-guitarist-producer. Moonlight Towers’ new album “Day is the New Night” is definite proof that rock’s not even under the weather.
Two previous, critically acclaimed albums make this one the end of a trilogy, so Stevens, drummer/harmony singer Richard Galloway, guitarist/ keyboardist Jacob Schulze and bassist Jason Daniels paint their power pop in grander strokes. Occasional horns, as on steamroller opening track “Heat Lightning,” and impassioned female vocals (“Distant Wheels,” “Easy Way Out”) give the record a Memphis feel. But if the band didn’t name itself after an Austin thing, you might think they’re from New Jersey or Philadelphia. At times they sound like the Smithereens if their singer were Jon Bon Jovi. (Bet that line doesn’t make the press kit.)
The four members of Moonlight Towers — all original — have day jobs and new families, so they don’t play out as often as they want to, though a recent tour with Blind Melon (Stevens’ brother’s band) recharged their road readiness.
“Day Is the New Night” came together in bits and pieces, though it sounds like it was bashed out in a barn over a long weekend. Since Stevens co-owns the East Austin Recording studio, the Towers were able to get their ideas down during unoccupied blocks of time. “We made the record in about 10 hours, spread out over a year,” said Stevens, raised in the same small Mississippi town where Howlin’ Wolf was born. “Our enthusiasm for playing music hasn’t changed at all, even though we have other responsibilities,” Stevens said. “I felt the same way making this record as when I was 16 going to Memphis to make a demo. The whole band is like that. This is what we do.” Sales might be slow, but the love for pure danceable rock ’n’ roll will stay strong if Moonlight Towers have anything to say about it. And on the new record they do.
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