Earl Loves the Ladies

He may be from Long Island, New York, and currently reside in Brooklyn, but Earl Pickens, frontman of The Black Mountain Marauders, is no fly-by-night urban cowboy. And even though he grew up listening to Billy Joel, Earl was country when country wasn't cool, which is unfortunate for him. In a city that seems to be fueled by fads, it's hard not to be mistaken for just another band jumping on the wagon.

You could sense western twang all over the city this year, critics hailing the Broadway musical Hank Williams: Lost Highway, catwalks declaring foam-front trucker hats fashionable, and honky-tonks like Hogs and Heifers getting more customers then Dolly Parton's plastic surgeon. Sadly, Urban Cowboy, the musical based on the 1980 movie, was panned for being too over-the-top and slick. But, you can't blame the producers, they had their fingers on the pulse of the city. I guess putting a mechanical bull on stage was just too shitty for urban shitkickers.

Before all this, though, Mr. Pickens (lead vocals/guitar) had a dream to bring his brand of country music to the city folks. He thought of disguising talented musicians as, um, talented musicians. In 2000, he rounded up Chief Dave Strongbow (bass), The Reverend Jedediah P. Houston (acoustic guitar/vocals), Joe Horseman (drums), Merle Twang (lead guitar) and Tink Travers (harmonica/banjo). They started playing Mr. Pickens' original tunes and cover songs ranging from Johnny Cash to Grand Funk Railroad in New York City venues that could be actual honky-tonks, if it weren't for the lack of two-stepping space. Their rousing live shows—that have included an Elvis impersonator, g-strings, audience participation of the mooning kind, and the occasional heckler—have had fans shooting out the lights.

Mr. Pickens, a natural when it comes to engaging the crowd, has a performance style reminiscent of The Reverend Horton Heat, who preaches to the congregation through his rockabilly music. However, Mr. Pickens is more cattle-driving herdsman than brimstone-spitting evangelist. He wields his guitar like it's an electric cattle prod. Instead of "Amens," he energizes the crowd with "Yeehaws!"

When the mood strikes, he'll head into the audience and climb up on a tabletop. If he sees a member of the audience with a camera, he'll trot over to the surprised fan and ham it up for a picture. He'll cotton-eyed joe and do-si-do, and then throw down his seemingly exhausted body on the stage, only to get up and do it all over again for the next song.

These antics, along with Earl's tongue-in-cheek showman bravado, may cause some newcomers to wonder if EPATBMM is more performance art than straight stage-craft. After all, the band members don fake names and faker rhinestones. Perhaps they're commenting on the commercialized overly-produced style of today's Top 40 country, the Billy Ray Cyrus working man's country. The band takes the music pretty close to the edge of parody. But, such opinions discredit the band members' technical talents and Mr. Pickens' ability to write damn good catchy country songs. The man has done his country history homework.

Which is probably why the man behind Earl, Billy Kelly, needs the persona of Earl. Through Earl, Mr. Kelly can bring his humor-tinged homage to country music to the skeptical folks of New York City without getting run out of town. He's not country's Vanilla Ice, pretending to be the real thing. He accepts his country roots are more spiritual than actual, and so he can lay the irony on thick while still taking the music seriously. What's more, underneath the western-style shirt is really a rock-and-roll star, which helps cosmopolitan audiences take to the music more willingly.

The band has experienced the usual growing pains and saw two of its original members, Tink Travers and Merle Twang, leave this past year. Andy Reidel (aka Andy Reidel) has come on board to take over lead guitar duties, and now the band are sounding tighter and more energized than ever.

annabelle was fortunate enough to sit in on a conversation held among Mr. Pickens and two of his biggest fans (part of a legion of female fans called "Earl's Girls"), Kitty Rogers and Dottie East, in between shows at the Rodeo Bar in the Gramercy Park section of New York City. Okay, Mr. Earl Pickens, give us the lowdown on your hoedown. - Sarah Thurmond and Kim Fusco

Dottie: Earl, your Web site describes the band's music as, "Spanning many different genres, the music of Earl Pickens and the Black Mountain Marauders contains elements of country, rock and roll, rockabilly, grindcore, and folk." What the hell is grindcore?

Earl: I don't know. (chuckles) Our former lead guitar player, Merle Twang, wrote that so we'd have to ask him. I've taken to describing the band as Johnny Cash meets Elvis...Costello and Presley, mainly because I jerk around on stage like an idiot. I don't know what grindcore is. I think it's like Scandinavian death metal or something.

Kitty: Earl, your fashion sense is outrageous! Speaking of Elvis, if the King were alive in 1987 and he and k.d. lang had a love child, I think it'd be Earl Pickens—only that would put you at about 16 years old now, which would make you underage and, therefore, illegal for the fine establishments you play in, and the fact that k.d. only likes cowgirls, but you get my point. What inspires your style? Where do you buy your clothes, particularly those tight-fitting blue-sequined pants you've worn on occasion? Why don't you wear them more often?

Earl: I still have those. They may be out next Wednesday. I always feel like I'm going to get beat up in those.

Kitty: Do you...?

Earl: Do I get beat up occasionally? Yes.

Kitty: ...ever worry about folks thinking you're some sort of rhinestone sissy cowboy with those flashy clothes?

Earl: Only outside of the Rodeo Bar. I walked somebody home after a show a couple of months ago. It was about two o'clock in the morning and the band had just finished up. She lived right around the corner, so I offered to walk her home because she was a little tipsy. I escorted her to her door. Then I realized after she left that she was actually protecting me because on the way back I felt like I was going to get my ass kicked. I had on the leather pants, the sequins, and all - wait, the first part of your question, there was something in there... Elvis...? I want to know what you mean by, "If Elvis were alive in 1987?" How could he have been dead in 1987 if he's alive now?

Kitty: Oh! Of course, what was I thinking?

Earl: Duh. Elvis is everywhere.

Kitty: You're right. If they had met in 1987.

Earl: Then, yeah, that's fair then.

Kitty: You seem really patriotic with your song, "Say It In English," and your American flag underpants. How many of those underpants do you own?

Earl: Do you have x-ray vision?

Dottie: There's a picture of them on your Web site.

Earl: I prefer the phrase boxer shorts. I have two, one for the shows and one that I wear every single other day... and never wash. I have two pairs.

Dottie: Earl, where were you raised?

Earl: I am from the deep South [beat] shore of Long Island.

Dottie: Long Island is not exactly the Nashville of the Northeast.

Earl: No. It's more like the Long Island of the Northeast. It's like the New Jersey of the Northeast except New Jersey is in the North. Or, so I hear.

Dottie: So how did you develop this interest in country music? Where did it come from?

Earl: Johnny Cash.

Dottie: What are your earliest memories of country music?

Earl: John Denver. (Everyone giggles.) My parents listened to John Denver. Then Willie Nelson, my mom was really into him. She used to play him all the time. And my older brother at the same time got into Johnny Cash. I was always, you know, being from Long Island, a big Billy Joel fan-

Kitty and Dottie: (Gasp!)

Earl: Let's keep that off the record, ladies. But in college and all through growing up, I made fun of country music. Then one day I heard a great Willie Nelson song called, "Wake Me When It's Over." It's just an amazing song, and I heard it and thought, That's a great song. There's no way Willie Nelson wrote that. And then I looked at the liner notes and Willie Nelson wrote that and "Crazy," the Patsy Cline song—I then made it my mission in life to spread the word that Willie Nelson wrote "Crazy." Songs don't have hands, but if it did have one hand, then "Wake Me When It's Over" single-handedly got me into country music.

Kitty: What do your band members think of you?

Earl: (chuckles) They love me. I don't know. I hope they like me but I don't really care. I got a job to do and that's bring the country rock and western roll to the people of this fine city.

Dottie: On a serious note, since Garth Brooks retired and Johnny Cash passed away, who's going to fill the void in country music?

Earl: Besides me, you mean?

Dottie: Yes. Do you think you're going to save it?

Earl: No. I'd like to destroy it, though, so that I could rebuild it on the third day. Being raised on Billy Joel, that kind of lowered my standards a little bit. As a songwriter, I tend to value a song beyond the productions of it. If a song is produced really over-the-top cheesy, Top 40 country, if it's a good song, I can get past the productions and like it. I like that Shania Twain song, uh, what's that one song, that first hit she had?

Dottie: "Man! I Feel Like a Woman?"

Earl: No, I hate that song. "You're Still the One." That's a good song. Actually, I want to cover, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman"—but not in drag. Do it like, "Man! I Feel Like a Slice of Pizza. Man! I Feel Like a Hot Dog. Man! I Feel Like a Woman." So, look for that one. As far as songwriting, I think they still have top-notch people writing songs. I think the production of a lot of songs on country radio is geared more towards Top 40, or what used to be called Top 40. A lot of that is just what the producers do to sell it to the kids. There's still a lot of good songs out there. I like Steve Earle. I like Dwight Yoakam a lot. He's cool. Do you listen to him?

Dottie: I know a couple of his songs.

Earl: Any album of his is great. He's awesome.

Dottie: Very Elvis inspired.

Earl: Oh yeah. And he's a Buck Owens fan. Buck Owens is great, too, but he's almost dead, so he's not going to save country, and that's where I come in!

Kitty: You're known as quite the ladies man. But some might say you bring it on a little too strong, what with all the panty-tossing that goes on at your shows and singing songs like, "New York Woman."..."I love the ladies all around the world/He loves the ladies, Earl loves the ladies/But the New York woman is my kind of girl." Is there something you'd like to get off your chest?

Earl: Yeah, these pasties for one thing. They're really itchy. I actually wore pasties. We played a bachelor's party here and I bought blue-sequined pasties that I let the girl keep and I made her promise that she would use them on the honeymoon after pulling my chest hairs out of my nipples.

Dottie: Did you hear back from her?

Earl: No, I never heard back from them, but they're still married to this day. I don't know, chicks dig it. Earl loves the ladies.

Kitty: About the chicks, is Earl married?

Earl: Earl is sleeping with a married woman, let's just say that.

Dottie: Then what's with the wedding band, Earl?

Earl: What are you talking about? (holds up right hand) What wedding band?

Dottie: On your left hand, Earl.

Earl: Oh! We play weddings, that's true. We could just as easily be called a Bah Mitzvah band also.

Kitty: You write a lot of songs about women, "Mary Lou, What Is It, Baby," "Evylina, I'm Dyin," is there a muse? Or, are they all different women? And can you write a song about me?

Earl: Occasionally I give myself a project as a writer. I try to write with a certain theme. A lot of the songs I wrote when we first started were trying to identify and connect with the audience. We're playing in bars so who are the characters you might find in a bar? How do you connect with them? As far as the songs about the girls, I gave myself a task of writing ten songs with women's names in the titles. And I wanted to put them altogether on one album, which I hope to do someday, and all the songs would have women's names in them, "Mary Lou, What is It, Baby?" "Annie, Say the Word," "Lorraine,"—that one we haven't played yet. And then I want to call the whole album something like "Mary" or "Stephanie," like another girl's name on top of it. But, I'm a one-woman man. I guess this is my way of pretending to the drunks that I'm actually not. "Wow! He's got a lot of women in his life!" But, yeah, there's only one and that's...uh...that's...uh...Lady Liberty.

Dottie: Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings?

Earl: Both. Can I pick both? Okay, Merle Haggard. Unless it's in a fight, in which case, Waylon Jennings.

Dottie: Who'd you rather...?

Earl: I'd rather sleep with? Hmm...that's a tough one. Can I say both again?

Kitty: Earl, I don't know how you do it, singing all those songs—at least, what, a dozen a show and two shows usually at each Rodeo Bar gig—and plucking all those notes on the guitar. How do you keep it all fresh? And how do you prevent that precious crooning voice of yours from just giving out on you during a show?

Earl: Alright, in reverse order, I work very hard to try to get my voice to give out during the show because it sounds better when it's raspy and cracking. And, the songs, yeah, I just love doing this so much. And as far as my musical aspirations, although I'd like to go further with the band, I've already basically reached the goal that I set for myself, which was when I moved to the city I wanted to have a great band and play in a crowded bar on a Friday night and just have people listen to my songs. I got that already so I sort of feel guilty pushing on and trying to get a record deal and stuff like that. We're going to try that anyway but, I just love it so much. Nothing to do but keep on keeping on.

Dottie: How has recording your music been for you?

Earl: It's a lot of fun. Always a letdown though. Like, you always have a better idea of what something's going to be like in your head, then you walk out of the studio with the tape or cd and you listen to it and you think, Boy, we should have fixed that. Or, God, I wish that we'd done this differently. But, you know, it's such a great band and the guys in the band, I just feel honored to have them play on my songs, and getting to record them is just, well, I try to just enjoy the thrill of it and forget about the expense of it. And send donations for recordings to Earl Pickens, P.O. Box...

Dottie: Have you ever hurt yourself while performing?

Earl: Almost every show. Usually I hurt other people. I've kicked people onstage, I hit somebody in their teeth with the microphone once, I broke a glass on somebody's foot, I fell off the table onto somebody. My knees pretty much kill me the next day after every show. Pulled muscles. I occasionally feel like I've given myself a hernia onstage, but, again, the chicks dig it.

Kitty: Do you consider what you do performance art?

Earl: Not really, but then again I've never actually seen our show live.

Dottie: There's a trailer park trash trend currently taking over the city. What do you say to folks who might think you're just another urban cowboy jumping on that fad?

Earl: Fuck them?

Kitty:: Earl, how do you want to be remembered?

Earl: Either as a country rocker or a rocking countrier. I just want to be remembered. Period.

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