Music

Hayes Carll has the songwriting to back his banter

"I know a lot of y'all aren't here for the music," singer-songwriter Hayes Carll told the audience at the Saxon Pub recently. "You're here to be seen. Attending a Hayes Carll show has become the hip thing." The lanky, sleepy-eyed 28-year-old goes on to say that staying for the whole show isn't even necessary to let people know how cool you are. Some acts will offer a simple "We have T-shirts for sale in the back," but Carll, whose dry wit and melodic songcraft suggest that a future live album be called "Deadpan Alley," turns the merch ad into a five-minute humor piece.

Can't decide between a comedy club and live music? Go see Hayes Carll, who introduces "Little Rock," the title track from his new album (available only at shows until March), by explaining that he came too late to the Texas singer-songwriter movement, so to set himself apart he started writing songs about Arkansas.

"It started off because I didn't have enough songs to do a full set, so I'd go into these introductions between songs," says Carll, who doesn't crack a joke during a 45-minute phone interview. "As a fan, I like it when songwriters tell funny stories between songs. It makes the material more accessible, I think."

Photo by Mary Bruton Hayes Carll says he likes it when other musicians intersperse their songs with humorous stories. 'It makes the material more accessible, I think.'

Hubbard became a mentor to the young native of Houston suburbia after Carll had heard, through a third party, that Hubbard had said nice things about the upstart's songwriting. "I was putting together my first press kit, but I'd never had anything written about me," Carll says. "I called up Ray Wylie and asked if I could use that quote in my press kit and he couldn't have been cooler. We ended up talking about music for about an hour."

The fast friends became songwriting partners on the new LP's "Chickens," which growls its way over a bluesy groove. "This record's not as singer-songwriterly as the first one (2002's "Flowers and Liquor")," Carll says. "We were going for more of a rockin' feel with a full band, rather than a solo acoustic thing." To that end, Carll was wise to hire producer R.S. Field, who helmed two of the greatest roots rock albums of the '90s, Shaver's "Tramp On Your Street" and Webb Wilder's "Doo Dad."

But even as the guitars crackle and the drums snap with authority, there's no mistaking that Carll is an emotionally conflicted soul. On the lead track "Wish I Hadn't Stayed So Long," he sings of "pretty girls and deep depressions falling from the sky," about being content about where he lives, as he plots his escape.

Carll grew up in the Woodlands, a drearily kempt upper middle-class suburb, the eldest of two sons born to a pair of attorneys. "I was pretty sheltered," he recalls. "I would read something like 'On the Road' and think, 'My life is the complete opposite of that.' " He tried his hand at songwriting at age 15 after he heard a folk trio play Bob Dylan songs at the Unitarian church his family attended about once a month.

Songwriting fueled his wanderlust, as Carll traveled to find experiences to write about. It didn't always work out. "I lived in Croatia for six months (in 2000) and wrote only two songs," he says. The Gulf Coast town of Bolivar, across the channel from Galveston, proved more creatively fertile, as Carll wrote an armful of new songs and played beachside taverns almost every night of the week.

He had found his calling, so he decided to focus on songwriting as a career by moving to Austin in 2001. But instead of playing the clubs and falling in with the vibrant music scene, Carll had to take jobs, such as waiting tables at Red Lobster and selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, to survive. "My self-esteem was at an all-time low," he says. "I put my tail between my legs and moved back to Bolivar. I figured playing those bars and restaurants wouldn't help my career, but at least I could make a living."

He saved up enough money to record an EP, which caught the interest of Brad Turcotte, who had just started up Compadre Records in Houston. "Flowers and Liquor," which Carll had originally put out himself, became the first release on Compadre. New father Carll (son Elijah was born 16 months ago) put out "Little Rock" on his own Highway 87 label.

But the real kick is the live show, with its Mitch Hedberg-like drollery between songs. "It's really a blessing and a curse," Carll says of his comedic flair. "Yeah, it helps set me apart, but it's also become a little too much like shtick." He says he admires someone like Bob Dylan, who can keep an audience completely entranced with his music alone. "Now, I'm no Bob Dylan," he says, "but that's my goal, to see if I can make it through an entire set without ever talking."

Yeah, right. And your buddy Ray Wylie's never going to play "Redneck Mother" again.