If you’re not familiar with The Brought Low, give it time and you will be. Born from the ashes of post-hardcore downtown regulars Sweet Diesel, The Brought Low have been supercharging audiences and critics alike since the release of their first self-titled album. From there the band continued to grow releasing Right On Time in 2006 and now Third Record.
Since their inception guitarist/singer Ben Smith has been pushing the band to grow as musicians and the evidence is clear from their progression as a band. Through line up changes, various labels and even families The Brought Low continues to not just put out records but to wow true rock fans with one better record after another.
The release of Third Record has The Brought Low in top form, combining pure rock with blues and even a copious amount of soul. Recently tapped to open for the Dave Grohl/Josh Homme band Them Crooked Vultures it’s clear the rock world is standing up and taking notice. Recently I got to talk to frontman Ben Smith about the band’s history, direction and what makes them tick.
CRAVEONLINE: Give me a little background on The Brought Low
BEN SMITH: The Brought Low formed in 1999. Me and Nick were in Sweet Diesel together and came out of the sort of greater New York City punk rock diaspora and wanted to do something more old school sounding, more straight up, with heart and soul and tinges of blues and country without being roots rock or alt country. Dean Rispler had produced the Diesel records and was a great bass player so we asked him to join and that was the original lineup. Tee Pee Records put out the first record in 2001 and we did a couple tours in support of it. Dean quit to concentrate on producing and Tanner from Bad Wizard / Harvey Milk joined up for about a year and helped arrange a bunch of the songs on the second record.
Bob and I had played together in The Kill Van Kull and he replaced Tanner in late 2003. We put out our second record, 'Right On Time,' in 2006 on Small Stone Records. Kevin 11 from The Murder Junkies played second guitar when we recorded 'Right On Time' but he moved to Virginia a month before it came out so we were once again a power trio and it's been this lineup since March 2006 and it's my favorite version of the band. I really wanted to get it on tape which leads us to the present and 'Third Record' which is also on Small Stone. The cliché is you always say your latest record is the best but that's really how it feels to me right now.
CRAVEONLINE: Where does the band’s name come from?
BEN SMITH: I got it from the novel 'Go Tell It On The Mountain' by James Baldwin. One of the characters is a priest who's "brought low by the Lord" for fucking the women in his church. You find the term in a lot of Christian texts. I grew up in a pretty religious household and have always liked that type of imagery and I thought it fit the sound of the band.
It sounded cool and dark without being obvious and I also dug the idea that if you were a jerk you were going to get yours. And it started with a B! The coolest bands' names start with B as does my name hahaha! I was adamant it was the name of the band right from the start. Naming a band is always torturous so I just said "The name of the band is The Brought Low, end of discussion." Some people really like it though I do have to spell it out a lot.
CRAVEONLINE: You’ve said the new album is you “coming to terms with your punk rock roots” what does that mean?
BEN SMITH: Specifically, I was referring to the first couple songs on the record which are more punk rock in style than what we've done before. Generally speaking, we recorded the record pretty fast and tried to not overcook it too much, from what songs were going on it to the artwork. We wanted to keep it fresh and spontaneous and didn't really give a fuck and just recorded the songs we felt like playing whether or not they sounded like Humble Pie or not. And just personally, I've re-discovered a lot of my old punk and hardcore records over the past couple years and they've been bringing me a lot of joy and inspiration.
CRAVEONLINE: How do you feel the band grew for Third Record?
BEN SMITH: I think we're more relaxed and more comfortable in our own skins and weren't afraid to do things we haven't done in the past like the acoustic song or the punk rock song or the instrumental. Not that anything on the record sounds drastically different than what came before it but in general we just let the material be. We've also just grown more cohesive and confident in the way we play together over the past 4 years. This version of the band has been together the longest of any lineup. We're fully marinated.
CRAVEONLINE: The songs on Third Record come off as stories. Is there a central theme to the album? Something you were trying to say?
BEN SMITH: Well, there are definitely the story-songs like "The Kelly Rose" or "Matthew's Grave." I've always liked songs like that whether it be Chuck Berry or The Band or Thin Lizzy and every record Brought Low record has a few of those. Then there's also the songs like "Old Century," "Everybody Loves A Whore" and "Last Man Alive" which share a similar theme and mood.
Despite my best intentions, I mean, I have a great life and little to complain about, but I'd say they are all rather bitter and deal with growing older and not being too happy with the way things are going in the country and the world at large and feeling detached and apart from it. But you know, there's a couple love songs on the record as well hahahaha.
CRAVEONLINE: How was it working with Andrew Schneider? What did he bring to the recording process you felt the band needed?
BEN SMITH: It was great. Going into it the goal was to make a modern, competitive sounding record that captured the excitement of our live show. We weren't as caught up in making it sound exactly like it was recorded in 1972. I wanted it to sound contemporary even if the songs had a classic vibe. I've known Andrew socially over the years and loved his production work on the Milligram records and knew he could get great drum and guitar sounds, something I wasn't 100% satisfied with on the other records. I knew we could trust him to make a great sounding record without us having to micromanage every aspect of the recording so we could just relax and focus on playing.
CRAVEONLINE: The band is a decade old. What have you learned over the last ten years and how does it help you to keep going?
BEN SMITH: Again, it might sound cliché machine but play music because you love playing music, not because you think it will make you rich and famous as chances are it won't. Measure your success in realistic terms. Even going back to Diesel, I've always felt as long as I could find someone who wanted to put a record of mine, I was succeeding as a musician, and that's still pretty much the case. And ultimately the music itself is the greatest reward anyway.
You know, we create music we'd want to listen to and is fun to play and means something to us. Besides that, the other important things I've learned over the years are to change your strings every night on tour and that whiskey always makes the hangovers worse.
CRAVEONLINE: You recently opened for Them Crooked Vultures how was that? How was the crowd reaction? Any reaction from Dave or Josh?
BEN SMITH: It was about as amazing as you would expect. Scary too, leading up to it I thought I was going to puke every hour of every day. Roseland was near capacity when we went on but we've played a couple bigger shows over the years and those big crowds are often easier to win over than a bunch of Williamsburg hipsters. We played great and people were loving it but once we were off stage they probably forgot about us.
But I mean, it was fucking great. I shook John Paul Jones' hand!! We met those guys in passing and they were all super cool, said it sounded good but you know, John Paul Jones probably saw Hendrix at a small club in London, how excited is he going to get watching us schlubs ripping off old Zeppelin riffs hahahaha?
CRAVEONLINE: The Brought Low is known for being a live band. How do you translate that energy to record and do you feel you have with Third Record?
BEN SMITH: It's tricky. I think of any of the records, this one captures our live energy but you can't do it by simply recording yourselves live with no overdubs. It's a little bit of sleight of hand, you leave on the stick drops and pre-roll stuff and it gives it that ambience of liveness. We also tried to limit the amount of overdubs without being religious about it.
If the song merited multiple guitar tracks, it got it, if not we left just one rhythm guitar. Andrew also works really fast so that helped a lot too. We just bashed it out which resulted in really fresh and alive takes. At the same time we worked as hard if not harder on this record than any of the others, we just did it in less overall time.
CRAVEONLINE: Top 5 Desert Island Albums?
BEN SMITH: This is your hardest question. Do you mean my favorite records or those I would need to survive a solitary life on a deserted island? Let's go with the former as I won't overthink it as much, so off the top of my head and in no order they would be Led Zeppelin 4, The Who 'Live At Leeds,' The Replacements 'Let It Be,' The Byrds 'Sweetheart of The Rodeo' and Agnostic Front 'Victim In Pain.' When I think of any of those records, I smile.
CRAVEONLINE: You and Nick (Heller) have been working together for years with Sweet Diesel and The Brought Low. What is that relationship like now?
BEN SMITH: You know, Nick is the drummer inside my head. When I write a song or a riff at home alone, I hear how it would sound with Nick playing drums on it. The beginning of the band was me and him sharing an apartment in Brooklyn down the street from our practice space and going down every Wednesday to work on these new songs I was writing. And we still have a lot of laughs. But you know, Bob's been playing with us for 7 years now, and before he joined I had spent a couple years playing with him in The Kill Van Kull so it's really all a family affair of all the dudes I've known and played with and hung out with since the Sweet Diesel days.
CRAVEONLINE: How do you balance having a family with being in a touring rock band?
BEN SMITH: It can be tough though when you have a kid your bottom line is pretty set in stone. I have a wife and child who I love more than anything and they are my number one priority and responsibility. Maybe if the band was my livelihood it would be harder deciding which was more important, family commitments vs. touring and the sacrifices that come with it but fortunately or unfortunately for me that's not the case so it makes it pretty easy for me to prioritize. And in truth we’re pretty far from a hard touring band.
CRAVEONLINE: We’re living in dark times these days. Why do you think there hasn’t been a musical revolution like the 70s punk movement of the 80s hardcore movement in response to it?
BEN SMITH: Man, I don't know. I'm waiting for a new bunch of kids to come and kick my ass with something that totally rocks and is original and angry and honest. Maybe it's because kids these days are too comfortable and have too many musical options and don't have to try that hard to find "their music." They're less invested in the music itself. Also, rock music is family entertainment now. The guys who created hardcore are now middle-aged parents themselves like in that SNL Crisis Of Conformity skit.
CRAVEONLINE: What’s next for The Brought Low?
BEN SMITH: We'll see. Thanks to the Them Crooked Vultures show and it coinciding with the new record the light is shining on us a little brighter than it normally would but we're a little long in the tooth to get carried away with it. We're going down to SXSW next month and doing a little tour which we haven't done in awhile so that'll be fun. We're really looking forward to getting out there and playing night after night. It’s like when a football player comes off a big win and says "I'm just focused on the next game." That's how we're looking at it. We're focused on the next show and hopefully we can get on the scoreboard and run up some yards.
CRAVEONLINE: After all these years playing in bands what wisdom have you gained about what being involved with a band is really all about? How does it differ from when you were younger?
BEN SMITH: The thing I never hear people talk about is the most important part of doing anything with your band is you need to keep that shit together. And to do this you generally should be playing with people you like and have a good time with. And it helps if you yourself are not a complete asshole.
You might all get on each others nerves but if you're going to achieve anything, whether it be merely putting out a record and playing some shows or signing to a major label and getting Phil Spector to produce your record, you need to be able to stand each other's company as you will be spending a lot of time together. And you know, make sure they don't suck at their instruments either. I probably care more about that now than when I was younger hahahaha.
CRAVEONLINE: Third Record has styles ranging from straight rock to blues to even some southern twang in it. What would be your three top influences and why?
BEN SMITH: Three?!?! Man, another tough one. Well you know, if it weren't for The Who, I might not have started playing music. My older brother took me to see 'The Kids Are Alright' in the theaters and that was that. Also the way they combined the bombast and violence of hard rock with real song-craft is certainly something we aspire to. As far as combing the rock with the blues and country influences, I'd have to say I learned that from The Stones. I always say the first "southern rock" song is "Honky Tonk Women" and if I have to pick one favorite band, it's probably them. And I guess the Laughing Hyenas and the off-shoot bands, Mule and P.W. Long, for bringing it all up to date. I think we're just sort of carrying on what they did but maybe a little more uh, "classic" sounding and less rough. But I mean, I'm leaving out Zeppelin, The Saints, AC/DC, Skynyrd, The Stooges, The Gun Club, basically any band with loud rhythm guitars that bring in those American roots influences and writes real songs is an influence on The Brought Low.
CRAVEONLINE: What new bands are doing it for you right now?
BEN SMITH: I dig Om, Black Mountain, Earthless, Stone Axe and of course our boys Dixie Witch and RPG never disappoint. Also Tilts which is dudes from Shame Club and Riddle of Steel. They sound like Torche meets Van Halen. I also like a lot of these new hardcore bands like Career Suicide, Total Abuse and Double Negative. They're a little conceptual but they write great songs which in the end is all that matters.
CRAVEONLINE: Do you think all of this new technology will save rock n roll or kill it? Why?
BEN SMITH: It won't kill it but it has certainly drastically altered the world of music. Illegal downloading and the emphasis on digital file-types is effectively killing off the album format and demonetizing it. Google search any album you want and you can find a version of it on the internet and rip it free of charge and keep the one song you heard on 'Gossip Girl' and delete the rest. It's hard not to think of this as a bad thing. On the flipside, a wider selection of music is now more accessible than ever and I find a lot of younger kids are very open-minded in their listening habits.
I mean, we'll see. Certainly, The Brought Low has benefitted from the new technology, as thanks to the internet and sites like yours and stonerrock.com we can maintain a public profile even if we don't tour or put out records very often. But the ultimate barometer is the music and I'm not hearing that much great, new music coming out these days so maybe we are fucked after all though maybe I'm just old and bitter and close-minded hahaha.
CRAVEONLINE: What do you want people who hear the new album to walk away with?
BEN SMITH: Hmmm, it's hard not to sound pretentious answering this question but you know, a little pretension isn't the worst thing in the world. I hope they can hear that it's genuine and heartfelt and not a pose or a put on. At the same time it’s big, loud rock n'roll and it should make you feel good and want to move. Also, as the lyric writer I hope the songs connect to people emotionally on some level. The greatest compliments I've received are when people say one of our songs meant something to them as they certainly mean a lot to me.
For more on The Brought Low check out:
Third Record is out now.
