‘Truck stop punk.’ COVID isn’t turning the record off for this Columbia rock band
Guitar chords blasted in a Chapel Hill dive bar. The crack of a rapid repeat back beat bounced off the exposed walls and low ceiling while the bass kept up the bop.
Liz Hale waled into the microphone, rallying her band like a soldier on the front lines of a charge.
Hale’s band, Brandy and the Butcher, baptized about 10 people in the sweat and static that is a dive bar rock ‘n’ roll show that night.
Thursday was typically busy for The Cave, the venerable Chapel Hill venue near the University of North Carolina campus, and a reliable tour stop for the Columbia band. But on this March night the onset of the coronavirus had put up a blockade against the normal crowd. With no idea what the future under the virus would look like and with those 10 people having given their hard earned cash for some guitar-driven sanctuary, Hale kept screaming and the band played on.
“Just put me on a stage, wind me up and watch me take off,” Hale said about the show. “I’ll play to 10 people like I play to a thousand.”
Now, Brandy and the Butcher, a Columbia based band of veteran musicians, have taken the same soldier-on mentality to putting out their debut record during the virus.
In Columbia and other college towns in the Southeast and across the United States, bands that bless people on any given night and blanket them with the camaraderie of rock ‘n’ roll are stashing away years-long plans to be cut into vinyl or to be shot through car speakers during road trips. For these bands, it’s a terrible and demoralizing blow.
For two years, Brandy and the Butcher wrote songs, recorded and poured their energy into their LP only to see the celebration for that effort dampened by COVID-19. But instead of wallowing in delays, the band has pushed forward with plans to release the record officially on Aug. 21 and to have a drop-in, with virus precautions, at the Art Bar in the Vista on Park Street, where fans and would-be listeners can get the album.
The virus has forced Brandy and the Butcher to get creative, make changes and confront what they want to be or else face the possibly of teetering off into the oblivion of the next forgotten Columbia group. But carrying on doesn’t do away with some heartache.
“It was the first record we were going to put out in the world,” Hale said. “It’s like having a baby and not being able to have a birthday party.”
While the band may be celebrating the record in Columbia, the virus made Brandy and the Butcher focus on if they want to be a local band, centering their efforts on homegrown fans, or if they wanted to place themselves in the national light.
Without the opportunity to play in Columbia, they positioned themselves as a band with an appeal across the United States, Hale said.
They tried live streaming shows to local audiences, but with the grit and drive of Brandy and the Butcher, it didn’t feel right for a camera to be absorbing their energy instead of bopping bodies connected to beer bottles.
Instead, they hitched their efforts to online pushes, getting their recordings to ears beyond Columbia. They picked up a PR firm to assist in the promotions, which has garnered them international coverage in places like Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries.
The band teased out the record by releasing singles rather than dropping the LP all at once online. They also made videos, a tact not often used by a locally-focused band.
“I think that being able to make music when there is no prospect of having shows and touring can be made to an advantage,” said Jay Matheson, the band’s guitarist. “Bands can be lazy and just do the same thing over and over where COVID forces us to adapt or die.”
As for the record itself, the sound is heart pounding, turn-up-the amplifiers rock ‘n’ roll with no regrets or excuses that would make The Stooges and The Plasmatics proud. The songs are touched with an AC/DC quality but with the blues replaced by punk.
Hale called it “Truck stop punk rock.” It’s music for “driving a car straight through a brick wall.”
Which, if they have to, they’ll do to get their new record out, she said.
Brandy and the Butcher’s new album is available for pre-sale online.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 11:02 AM.