Nashville Scene

With the release of his latest album Burden of Proof, Bob Schneider breaks new ground. Exploring loss, lust, love, dark desires and skeptical optimism, Schneider has crafted lyrically and musically, his most ambitious and sophisticated album to date.

Born in Michigan and raised in Germany, Schneider was playing music and creating art from the time he was four years old. “I was left-handed, but the nuns at my Catholic school forced me to write with my right hand,” Schneider reflects. “But I still like to think of myself as left-handed. I’ve always thought of myself as a round peg in a square hole sort of person. Like I just didn't quite fit in. I was socially awkward and I think that led me to finding solace in imaginary worlds that I would create in my art and music.”

At age ten, Schneider’s father, an opera singer by trade, dressed him in a leisure suit and took him along to gigs where they’d perform jazz standards and other hits from the 1940s-70s.

Schneider spent his college years as a fine arts major, but dropped out to move to Austin and pursue a music career after taking to heart the words of singer-songwriter Terry Allen. “I remember him saying ’If you’re going to do art, drop out of school and start doing your art and living your life ’cause your degree’s not going to make a difference.”

So Bob Schneider blazed into Austin and has been packing houses and winning over audiences ever since, firmly claiming his place as one of the most sought-after entertainers in the live music capital. Schneider sells out venues coast to coast from New York, Chicago Minneapolis and Baltimore to LA, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. His live shows are playful and raw, while on stage Schneider commands the room. He’s charismatic and friendly, bantering with his bandmates and heckling the audience. As he launches into each song with his whole being, the audience is instantly transported, tumbling through the dark recesses of his imagination.

Much like Jack White and Ryan Adams, Bob Schneider has mastered the art of keeping his audience on their toes, never knowing what will come next. Schneider dances to the tune of his own drum and the beat changes from album to album. With Burden of Proof, he has elevated his game once again, creating a brilliant and elegant album. “Some folks might think that I'm taking a big risk musically by getting away from the more easily accessible pop songs of the earlier records,” said Schneider. “But to me it seems like a natural progression that is more subconscious than conscious really.”

Schneider’s songs and albums thrive on the element of surprise, and the tracks on Burden of Proof are no exception, sure to be a crowd favorite, “Unpromised Land”—the first single off the album—packs all the energy of a Schneider performance into one fierce, rocking anthem. An instant stand out, “Swimming In The Sea,” captures the out-of-body, spine tingling magic of falling in love. Schneider adds, “I love love songs that go against the grain of what it means to be in love and how that's supposed to feel. It's rarely a walk in the park for me and ’Swimming in the Sea' (which is something that I'm deathly afraid of) sort of captures the wonder and terror of being in love and not having any control over it all.”

Other highlights include the Leonard Cohen-esque “Digging for Icicles” highlights Schneider’s vast vocal range, his voice dropping as the song descends into mournful meditations. “The Effect,” gospel-inflected and danceable, evokes Graceland-era Paul Simon. With the deceptively simple “Tomorrow,” the album’s only cover, Schneider offers a stunning re-vision of the classic showtune, raw and unguarded. Amidst the hope- tinged despair of “Wish the Wind Would Blow Me” Schneider tosses out what amounts to a playground insult, “I wish your mom was ugly/ And your dad was ugly too,” but then deftly twirls it into a disarmingly charming love note, “Then they couldn’t have had a girl/ To be as beautiful as you.”

Nearly every track on Burden of Proof features string arrangements composed by Schneider himself. The album also showcases Schneider’s decades-long creative relationship with the Tosca String Quartet. Schneider first paired with the quartet on “Love is Everywhere,” the hidden track off of his award-winning album I’m Good Now. At the time, Schneider wrote a string arrangement for the beautifully devastating “Weed Out the Weak.” That fan favorite has finally found a home on Burden of Proof, positioned amongst sensual charmers, danceable bursts of fire and bounce, and contemplative sojourns.

Longtime fans will recognize Schneider’s trademark fusion of eclectic musical styles, innovative compositions, and intricate, emotion-filled lyrics. Schneider croons, drawing listeners in with the promise of romance. Then the energy shifts, the strings swell, and the songs turn seductively tangy, twisted.

Veering away from the traditional music video model, Schneider is instead honoring the cinematic feel of Burden of Proof by engaging the talents and artistic vision of twelve film directors. Directors include internationally renowned filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, who shot the video for Schneider’s AAA Radio hit “40 Dogs (Like Romeo and Juliet)” from his 2009 album Lovely Creatures, and award-winning photographer and director Dan Winters, whose photograph and drawings grace Burden of Proof’s cover and liner notes.

Schneider’s artistic exploration is not limited to the stage or the studio. He is also a celebrated sculptor, painter, and poet with two published books of poetry and art and another one forthcoming.

With Burden of Proof, Bob Schneider delivers a much-heralded explosive addition to his already expansive artistic canon, a work of sophisticated craftsmanship and a wild ride to boot.

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It starts with the voice. Before you notice the words, before you detect the gently curling melodies tugging them along, this is what hits you first: It's warm and rich and touched with a soft Southern twang, as likely to swing down into its earthy lower register as arch upwards into a hopeful trill; it's steady and sure but flecked with a certain weary sadness that stops you dead, draws you near. It's beautiful. It knows something.

This voice is Jill Andrews, who's been singing her whole life: as a little girl in Johnson City, Tenn., as a camp counselor plucking out three chords on an acoustic guitar under swaying pine trees, as one-half of The Everybodyfields -- and, since 2009, as an increasingly formidable singer/songwriter making her way on her own.

The Knoxville-based Andrews crafts beguiling, startlingly intimate songs that merge her voice with her effortless, classic-pop sensibility and keen eye for human drama -- all the unspoken truths between lovers, devastating confessions whispered to friends, silent prayers offered up during the longest, loneliest nights. A smart, subtle tunesmith and a gently wise songwriter, Andrews' songs shuffle in and settle down with little fanfare, then quietly go about the business of ripping your heart straight out of your chest.

And her full-length debut, The Mirror out June, 7th, is the perfect introduction to her ever-deepening talents and charms.

"The Mirror was written over a period of time when I was holding on dearly to a relationship that I knew was over," Andrews says of the new LP. "I felt like I was forever trudging through the darkness, but then came springtime, and with it, the beautiful sunlight."

Teaming up with producers Scott Solter (Superchunk, The Crooked Jades) in North Carolina and Neilson Hubbard (Glen Phillips, Matthew Perryman Jones) in Nashville, The Mirror nudges Andrews' folksy roots into a more decidedly pop direction. Her clear, lovely voice sounds more adventurous than ever, and on tunes like "Blue Sky," "A Little Less" and the album's title track, her words are wrapped in shimmering piano lines and a collage of background harmonies. It starts with the voice. Before you notice the words, before you detect the gently curling melodies tugging them along, this is what hits you first: It's warm and rich and touched with a soft Southern twang, as likely to swing down into its earthy lower register as arch upwards into a hopeful trill; it's steady and sure but flecked with a certain weary sadness that stops you dead, draws you near. It's beautiful. It knows something.

This voice is Jill Andrews, who's been singing her whole life: as a little girl in Johnson City, Tenn., as a camp counselor plucking out three chords on an acoustic guitar under swaying pine trees, as one-half of The Everybodyfields -- and, since 2009, as an increasingly formidable singer/songwriter making her way on her own.

The Knoxville-based Andrews crafts beguiling, startlingly intimate songs that merge her voice with her effortless, classic-pop sensibility and keen eye for human drama -- all the unspoken truths between lovers, devastating confessions whispered to friends, silent prayers offered up during the longest, loneliest nights. A smart, subtle tunesmith and a gently wise songwriter, Andrews' songs shuffle in and settle down with little fanfare, then quietly go about the business of ripping your heart straight out of your chest.

And her full-length debut, The Mirror out June, 7th, is the perfect introduction to her ever-deepening talents and charms.

"The Mirror was written over a period of time when I was holding on dearly to a relationship that I knew was over," Andrews says of the new LP. "I felt like I was forever trudging through the darkness, but then came springtime, and with it, the beautiful sunlight."

Teaming up with producers Scott Solter (Superchunk, The Crooked Jades) in North Carolina and Neilson Hubbard (Glen Phillips, Matthew Perryman Jones) in Nashville, The Mirror nudges Andrews' folksy roots into a more decidedly pop direction. Her clear, lovely voice sounds more adventurous than ever, and on tunes like "Blue Sky," "A Little Less" and the album's title track, her words are wrapped in shimmering piano lines and a collage of background harmonies.

But beneath many of the songs' bright shells lies plenty of the tough, true words that have become a hallmark of Andrews' career.

"There are a couple songs that are a mixture of dark lyrics and happy melodies. I'm not sure how I came up with this formula, but I feel like these songs will make people smile and want to dance, not just blindly skip along to a catchy beat," Andrews says. "I want my fans to walk away singing my songs and thinking about what I have said to them during those three minutes of their precious time."

A rock-solid frontwoman in sundresses and Frye boots, Andrews leads a full band on record and on stage, drawing in tender piano, shuffling drums and searing electric guitar to support her careful acoustic picking. Wherever she plays, she offers up a vision of herself as a singular, quickly-maturing artist with the power to cross lines of genre and geography, taste and time. She is a force -- and a voice -- to be reckoned with.

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A singer/songwriter whose haunting, wizened voice and worldly compositions belie his tender age, Jordan Hull was born in 1989 and has studied folk and rock music luminaries practically ever since. Today, the boy who was caught transfixed by Elvis on the TV has become a student of music inspired more by the folk tradition. In fact, a listen to his debut album finds him seemingly picking up the torch from artists many, many years his senior.

That esteemed group would have to include the legend Jordan's most readily compared to, a singer-songwriter who released his self-titled debut some four decades earlier: Bob Dylan. The analogy is apt- philosophizing troubadours with finger-picked guitar passages and strong harmonica skills are scarce these days. When the notes first hit your ears, the initial impression is often something like, "Where the heck did this guy come from?" As the verses build, though, surprise turns to familiarity, as old songs can seem new again, and vice versa.

Judging from the insightful lyrics and intuitive melodies on his freshman outing, Jordan's sophomore release should prove just as effective in reconciling the many persistent, peculiar dualities of this young performer's music—the strange with the familiar, the disciplined with the effortless, the old with the new.

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