With little but raw talent and Southern charm, Jamestown Revival and their approach to music are a breath of fresh air. In a world where contemporary music is saturated with jaded pop lyrics and synthesized instrumentals, the folk duo strips away the tech and the glitz to expose music at its most vulnerable, most honest level. With Utah, their harmony-driven autobiographical debut, the pair gets back to basics, proving that good songs—and good stories—can still exist standing on their own.
Jamestown Revival’s story traces back to the small town of Magnolia, Texas, where long-time friends Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance grew up together, bonding early over a shared love of the Southern rock and blues greats. Stevie Ray Vaughan. Guy Clark. Creedence Cleerwater Revival. It was through these artists’ records, among others, that both musicians came to develop their own styles as solo artists, Clay fashioning a singer-songwriter Matt Nathan-esque niche and Chance channeling a folkier, more bluesy vibe.
Now, as Jamestown Revival, the two craft a sound based in their acoustic beginnings but resoundingly richer and far more impactful than ever before. Backed by solid songwriting, Clay’s gritty tones in tandem with Chance’s airier timbres—and effortless coolness—are a match made in heaven. The result: quality songs and earnest, perfectly harmonized execution. No synths needed.
“The whole idea of Jamestown Revival when we started was feeling that if a song is good enough it can stand on its own—even if it’s just a guy and a guitar playing it.,” says Clay. “So we really tried to write good music in the way that people like Willie Nelson or John Prine, or Guy Clark have done. We’ve certainly got a long way to go to be at that level, but those guys write songs that they don’t need a whole bunch of this and that to make them better, cause they’re just good songs. That’s kind of what we wanted to model ourselves after.”
True to their folk roots, Clay and Chance cite the desire to not only write quality songs, but tell good, honest stories as the catalyst of what they do.
“You know there’s a handful of really talented artists out there who you listen to and you’re like ‘holy shit, how can you tell a story that good,’” says Clay. “Once we really started getting into music and doing a little soul-searching, as far as who are we are as musicians, those are the guys that kind of inspired us to be better, to write lyrics that really mean something. “
Says Chance, “You dig into enough music, you start to figure out the area you’re truly inspired by, and for us that’s to trying to tell a good story.”
After moving from Austin to L.A. a few years ago, the pair experienced what Clay describes as “a lot of growth, a lot of discovery, a lot of being uncomfortable.” Ultimately, the experience helped provide the substance for Utah, their first full-length record, released February 11 via Wild Bunch Records. The outcome is lo-fi gold.
Recorded to tape with little equipment—no headphones, no click track—the 11-track album became about capturing authentic moments in recording, not about trying to turn songs into something they weren’t.
“Our sort of mindset going into it was to really just strip away as much as we possibly could and down to the real meat of the songs and let it really stand on its own, let it be a little vulnerable,” says Clay. “Our priority was more in capturing the performance and really locking in together vocally rather than trying to get some perfect sound, rather than production.”
Isolated in a log cabin in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, “an underrated wilderness,” Jamestown Revival set out to produce a record in a way that was ultimately not about producing a record. From the mountainesque “Wandering Man,” to the wistful “Time is Gone” and soulful, foot-stompin-hand-clappin-good “Revival,” the pair spins and weaves a sound so warm and organic it could only be the product of two long-time friends, sitting in a log cabin, playing music.
That said, Utah is in and of itself a journey.
“It became about capturing the moments,” says Clay. “For me, when I’m listening back to the record that’s what it is. It’s recorded moments from a cabin; it’s not a traditional record necessarily. Hopefully when people listen to it they can sort of feel like they’re sitting there, like maybe they’re in this cabin in Utah in the mountains and that there’s some sort of serenity that comes with that.”
In its first week, the album debuted as #37 on iTunes, an effect by which the two say they were “pleasantly surprised, to say the least.” “It’s been a long time coming, so it feels really good to have the record out and to have people getting behind it,” says Chance.
While currently on tour with American folk rock band The Wild Feathers and fellow Austinites Saints of Valory, the duo plan to do some solo touring and get back to recording new music in the near future.
“Moving forward, I think if we can keep growing this thing and be able to maintain our freedom and integrity, find people who can relate to what we’re doing, and keep what we’re doing really natural and honest, that would be our goal,” says Clay. Adds Chance, “If we can keep doing this, we’ll be smitten.”
