18 December 29, 2022–January 4, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Month XX–Month XX, 2014 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | Ooh La La, John Lee Hooker’s Endless Boogie, The Dark Side of The Moon. But there are also a few trippier colors in the palette: various al- bums by Yo La Tengo, Spacemen 3, Tame Im- pala, Beach House, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Brian Eno’s Another Green World, The War On Drugs’ Future Weather, Grace Potter guitarist Benny Yurco’s instrumental solo album You Are My Dreams, Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool, Ruth Welcome’s Zither Magic and dozens of others. While digging though his collection, Tyler pulls out an album called Vibe Killer by the band Endless Boogie, named after the afore- mentioned John Lee Hooker album. “Just give yourself an experience with these guys,” he says as he places the record on his player, hands me the sleeve and asks me to sit directly in front of the speakers in his “listening chair.” One of the pull-quotes on the record’s hype sticker reads “Pure Disgust.” “I am the vibe killer,” Tyler sings, growl- ing along with the album. Tyler has a particular obsession with what non-musicians would describe as “vibe.” Unlike the social media concept of vibe as a lifestyle aesthetic, Tyler’s obsession is purely musical. He asks himself, “What does true vibe feel like?” His own records are rife with sonic detail that tickle the ca- sual listener while pleasantly perplexing the ears of those listening deeper. There’s the fuzzed-out, droning low note from a Farfisa organ on “Hustlin,” the envelope filter lead- ing into the cosmos on “Moon & Stars,” the multi-tracked guitar harmonies on “Movin’ On,” the motorik new-wave-meets-metal- chug of “Mister Resistor” and numerous other moments on the record. While Tyler is now in a place of relative comfort, the gestation of Underground For- ever came during another period of transi- tion. In 2020, Tyler and his longtime girlfriend, country singer Nikki Lane, broke up. In 2021, he was shooting the elaborate music video for his psychedelic ballad “Moon & Stars” when a romance was kin- dled between the singer and the video’s star, Zoe Prewitt. “I try to make sense of every signpost that I see along the way,” Tyler says after a reflec- tive long pause. “I’m always trying to make sense out of everything. We just hit it off making that video. It’s weird. You hear all these typical things people say, like, ‘When you’re not trying, you’ll find the right per- son,’ all those cliches. I don’t know, man.” Of course he’s heard himself say it too. “The time wasn’t right, but it never is.” The Hype Was Real T he biggest storyline of Tyler’s career came in the wake of Pardon Me’s re- lease in 2010. The album and singles found moderate success on rock radio via Atlantic’s marketing pushes. The single “Gypsy Woman,” Tyler’s then-signature song, reached a respectable No. 27 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts. The band’s songs were featured in a few TV spots, and the band made a scorching ap- pearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Produced by Jay Joyce (Cage The Ele- phant, The Brothers Osborne, Halestorm), Pardon Me is a slick and effective rock album that bridged that gap between early 2000s ra- dio rock and the burgeoning blues and roots rock revival. JTNL’s mission statement at the time was a blunt and youthful one: “Baby, it’s been too long since rock ‘n’ roll turned you on, so won’t you pardon me?” Tyler and com- pany sing on the album’s title track. The hype was real: comparisons to early Kings of Leon were casually and constantly thrown around by the music press. At the 2009 Dallas Observer Music Awards, Tyler was named Best Male Vocalist, while JTNL took home awards for Best Group and Best Blues Act. In 2010, Pardon Me was voted best CD release by Observer readers, along- side a throng of positive national press. They played ACL Fest, toured with Lynyrd Sky- nyrd and ZZ Top, and opened for AC/DC in front of 9,000 people in El Paso. The band seemed primed for breakout mainstream national success. Yet, that chapter of Tyler’s story has be- come a cautionary tale against getting caught up in what Joni Mitchell once called “the star-maker machinery behind the pop- ular song.” Tyler found himself at odds with Atlantic, which was understandably looking to push him in a more commercial, “bro- country” direction. The songs he presented as the follow-up to Pardon Me were looser, folkier and more experimental than the Aerosmith-via-Black Crowes guitar swarm of his major label debut. What actually transpired is mostly between Tyler and At- lantic, but the resulting conflict prevented Tyler from effectively touring and recording for nearly five years. Those songs were eventually released in- dependently — in their true form, as Tyler wanted them — in 2015, making up his solo album Holy Smokes. Atlantic Records re- tained (and continues to retain) the rights to Pardon Me, making its existence in the wild a rare one, effectively only found on stream- ing services. “We weren’t ready,” Tyler says as he pokes at his leftover Brussels sprouts. “We weren’t strong, we hadn’t built a strong thing yet, we weren’t even defined. But all these people at Atlantic got involved. It was too much, too quick. It’s not Ahmet Ertegun anymore, it’s all about data. It is what it is. What can I do about it?” Ertegun, who was the head of Atlantic Re- cords until the early 2000s, was known to give the artists on his label ample creative freedom. To add insult to injury, Tyler was ac- costed by a Minnesota-based patent lawyer who demanded more than $50,000 for the rights to use the name The Northern Lights, a saga worthy of its own book. As the battle between Tyler and Atlantic raged on, the other members of the band moved on to other projects. Just over a year after the release of Par- don Me, bassist Nick Jay left to pursue a full- time career in engineering and production (alongside a stint as a touring keyboardist for Ed Kowalczyk’s current incarnation of the band Live). Guitarist Brandon Pinkard and drummer Jordan Cain formed the duo Rise & Shine (whose Pinkard-penned song “Riverbottom” Tyler covers on Holy Smokes), with Cain also leading the roots- rock collective Atlantis Aquarius. Pinkard eventually left the music busi- ness altogether for a career in construction, alongside JTNL’s full-time backup and oc- casional lead singer Emotion ‘Mo’ Brown, who also eventually left the music business to become a teacher. Given what JTNL was put through in the struggle with Atlantic, one can’t blame Tyler’s former bandmates for the change of heart. “Some people don’t see the possibility of being able to [make music] for a living,” Ty- ler says. “You can work hard at a regular job for $200 a day, or you can come play music and possibly make the same thing, you just gotta play your guitar for three hours. Or, if you work real hard, you can land some com- mercial opportunities.” After years of wandering through the landscape of the starving artist’s path, Tyler found a job producing commercial music for a marketing company, a profession he says has allowed him to comfortably focus on making his own music while producing for others. It’s a job he said helped rekindle his love for music. “I tried to keep doing something that I loved while still being open-minded about other things,” he says. “It’s made a huge dif- ference in my life.” Tyler eventually regained the use of The Northern Lights name, and occasionally is still billed under his former JTNL moniker. Despite that, Tyler agrees that “Jonathan Ty- ler & The Northern Lights” refers to himself and that specific group of people — Jay, Pinkard, Cain, and Brown — and will gener- ally be reserved for that group only. Blue Skies, Dirt Road T yler’s music has always had a distinct dichotomy. It’s the blue skies versus the dirt road. It’s psychedelia meets Americana. The Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque tempestuous relationship duet with Nikki Lane on “To Love Is to Fly” from Holy Smokes is elevated by a bridge of pedal steel guitar through a wash of wah-wah and phaser effects, creating a sort of weightless- ness that feels a lot like being in love. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Tyler and Lane sing to each other. There’s the gravity. “It’s funny how if you write songs about something, sometimes you manifest that,” Tyler recently told an audience in Odessa, before playing “To Love Is to Fly.” Tyler’s professional and personal rela- tionship with Lane yielded one of her best records, 2017’s Highway Queen, produced by Tyler. Before their breakup, Lane also con- tributed backing vocals to several tracks on Underground Forever. While Highway Queen was the first major record Tyler produced for an another artist, production has become the biggest part of his recording career. He’s produced records for Jeremy Pinnell, Desure, Jeff Crosby, Kel- ley Mickwee and others, and in the near fu- ture one by Texas music legend Ray Wiley Hubbard. “Jonathan is such a worker,” says Pinnell, whose 2021 album Goodbye L.A. was entirely produced by Tyler. “He doesn’t take breaks unless he’s totally fried. In the studio we worked and worked and worked. We would work until late in the night and he would keep going. We would call it a session and he would be back doing playbacks and tinkering with things. The vibe was so positive.” Tyler has said he encourages artists to emphasize creativity before completion. “It isn’t the Super Bowl,” he recently told Clarissa Cardenas on her Concert Queen pod- cast, discussing the coaching he gives to art- ists he’s producing. “It’s all right. Everything.” “He is so good about encouraging people to try things and just draw it all out of you,” Pinnell says. “Like, you want to be around that dude! He’s good people.” There is absolutely no shortage of love for Tyler in North Texas, Austin and their corresponding music scenes. Taylor Nicks, former frontwoman for Atlantis Aquarius, and currently of the noted Dallas music stu- dio Modern Electric Sound Recorders, says Tyler was one of the first people to draw her into the local music scene. Cameron Duddy, bassist of the Nashville- via-Texas country trio Midland, says his and Tyler’s paths first crossed in Music City playing a Johnny Cash tribute when Tyler gave him some mints. “In the middle of this chaos, Jonathan Agony and Ecstasy from p17 Flanked by Norah Jones and Leon Bridges, Jonathan Tyler performs at Neil Fest. Mike Brooks
