A Birmingham soul act finds its moment
Before a sold-out string of national dates turned them into a festival fixture, St. Paul and the Broken Bones were a Birmingham, Alabama band built on friendship and a shared love of soul. Ahead of their November 15 appearance at the Alabama Music Box in Mobile, frontman Paul Janeway sat down to talk about how the group came together and what Gulf Coast audiences could expect.
How the band formed
Janeway explained that he and bassist Jesse had been friends for some time before they began recording in a Birmingham studio with an open-door policy, inviting musicians to drop in and track parts. Drummer Andrew was asked to record a song barely an hour before he played it. Guitarist Browan Loller came aboard after being invited to add a track to the band’s early “Greetings” EP and quickly fell for the material. Horn players Allen Branstetter and Ben Griner were studying music at Samford University when they joined to add brass. Janeway said the lineup’s fast chemistry still surprises him.
Why soul
Asked what drew the band to soul, Janeway said his voice naturally does a certain thing and that he cannot sing anything halfway. The whole group, he said, approaches every performance with everything it has, and that full commitment is the essence of soul music.
On the bands he admires in the current Southern scene, Janeway pointed to labelmates Belle Adair and The Bear, the Birmingham hip-hop group The Green Seed, anything involving musician Chad Fisher, and Nashville’s DeRobert and The Half-Truths, whom the band shared a bill with not long before the interview.
Mobile bound
Janeway played down any sense that the band has “made it,” saying he tends to carry a chip on his shoulder: once the group hits a goal, it is immediately on to the next one. He said he expects to look back one day and appreciate how far things have come.
For the Alabama Music Box show, he promised a fun night. The band had played Callaghan’s in Mobile a few times and found those rooms special. With keyboardist Al Gamble now touring with them, Janeway said fans could expect something memorable. “Mobile has been really good to us,” he said, “and I hope we return the favor Friday night.”