This is the last Band of the Week for 2006 and with that in mind I searched high and low for a band that would make BotW really proud. A band capable of the kind of emotive songs and hard rocking tunes that could inspire me to put my arms up in the air and dance and completely lose myself in their music. And I found them.
Fort Worth, Texas-based Green River Ordinance (GRO) are the next big band-on-the-block. With an alt.rock-power pop sound that will make you think of Third Eye Blind, Nickelback or Matchbox Twenty. The lyrics are a little bit country with a pop twist but still rock-&-roll and somehow maintain an ardent passion and emotional intensity. GRO are truly the next legend-band in the making.
Formed in high school, Josh Jenkins (lead vocals & acoustic), brothers Jamey (electric guitar) and Geoff Ice (bass), Denton Hunker (drums) and Josh Wilkerson (electric guitar) took their name from a street sign found, forgotten, in a back yard. The Green River Ordinance outlawed door-to-door salesmen from visiting country homes without an appointment. This appealed to the boys as their fan base was growing almost door-to-door by word of mouth.
Now the momentum is building and this exciting new band are beginning to be noticed on a national level beginning with two different appearances on national television shows - YMCTV’s “City Sessions” and HDNET’s “True Music”. Their debut album The Beauty of Letting Go reached #2 in the sales chart on Awarestore.com – one of the largest online independent distributors – and stayed in the Top 10 for eight weeks. At the 2006 Fort Worth Music Awards GRO won Artist of the Year, Rock Album of the Year for The Beauty of Letting Go and Song of the Year for their single “Piece it Together”. GRO have been named by MTVU’s “Best On Campus” one of the top 20 college bands in the US for 2006 and this year they have opened for Collective Soul, Bowling For Soup and Bon Jovi—at which a Bon Jovi insider reportedly said: “This is by far the best local band we have seen open up for Jon (Bon Jovi) the entire tour.” And now a new video for their single “Breath of Life.”
Josh Jenkins, the frontman for GRO, agreed to have a chat with me on the phone for the last BotW and I was thrilled. Rarely do I feel nervous when talking to a frontman – there have been so many now – but this time I was. GRO made me feel inspired in a way that few rock bands do. GRO’s warm, intense, emotive rock-&-roll tunes illicit both sexual and joyous feelings in me all at once. Josh turned out to be an intelligent, slightly shy, deeply spiritual young man who said if the rock band thing didn’t work out, he may become a missionary. Josh and I spoke three times on the phone and each time I was deeply impressed. His charming sense of humour and warm, soft Texas accent made each phone call fantastic fun as we talked about Travis, The Killers, Winnie the Pooh and Southern sayings. This is a small part of our longest conversation.
Tell me about your debut album The Beauty of Letting Go.
Our thing is like the pop-rock… All the stuff we have on that record is from like three or four years ago, when it was written.
How long has The Beauty of Letting Go been out now?
Probably about a year.
Are you currently recording again?
We just finished recording three or four new songs. Just demoed them, we kinda got them down. Kinda like pre-production stuff. So, possibility of makin’ a record or puttin’ out an EP of our newer stuff just to get it out to our fans. So that’s kinda what we been doin’. I mean I laid a whole lot of stuff down just acoustic and vocals, just to have the ideas down. But… that stuff is just like a whole different… like even with the band, you know we’re pretty much pop rock. But like me, as a musician, I have a lot of different ideas so I lay down whatever.
Do you think you will ever have any solo projects?
We’ve talked about this and one of our goals as a band is that at some point in time, I guess whenever the time arrives, to do an album under pseudo names, a different name. Do it rootsy (referencing roots rock), kinda like rootsy, raw kinda like that Ryan Adams, just kinda like… I don’t really know just rootsy stuff. All of us are really into that stuff. Write a record that’s more, organic in a sense. Not polished but more raw. It’s something we have a desire to do.
Don’t you think you could do that under the name Green River Ordinance?
I mean that would be cool, I would love that. I just feel like the more… and this is something we try to do within the band. Give a broad… on the album we have some really chill songs, kinda bring it down, that are really broad. Not every song’s a rock song. We feel like progression of a record needs to have diversity, have a dynamic to it. You know, really bring it down. And I definitely agree that the more diverse and dynamic you can show you are as a band the more people are going to enjoy your music. They’re not going to feel like they’re getting tinned, sappy, poppy songs. Those songs are going to lose their value because every song sounds the same. A record that holds its own, that has different things to offer and different things to say and sounds, it just offers a whole new dynamic and a kind of freshness.
I look at the records I enjoy and I think it’s kinda up and down, what the songs… how they are and… Which I really enjoy. Which I agree can be done with Green River Ordinance.
But you think you want to do it separately?
That was just an idea. We’re not even sure, you know. Even a couple of songs we have said are gonna be done through some other avenues, at some point in time, we have worked into the band. So, I guess that kinda has worked its way into what we do. And a lot of times it shows, we’ll play an acoustic song or more folky or whatever. And people are always interested to hear that stuff because it’s different than what’s on the record. So maybe that’s a good sign, maybe we should really open up.
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Article comments
1 - Douglas Mays
How did these guys come up with the name? Back in proto-grunge days there was the Seattle band Green River, named after a stretch of water up here (Seattle) that many murdered women's bodies were dumped by the famed Green River Killer.
Members of this band? Take a look at Pearl Jam's roster.
OK, trivia....
2 - A.L. Harper
Hey Douglas - This Green River Ordinance get their name from a street sign they found abandoned in one the band members back gardens. The Green River Ordinance was an ordinance that outlawed door-to-door salesmen from visiting country homes without an appointment.
But he trivia was very interesting, thanks!