From small-town Nevada to far-off France, Sacramento’s The Alkali Flats spread the gospel of authentic country music
Words by Anthony Giannotti
The Alkali Flats is a country band. Now, I know some people don’t like country music, and to be honest, I can’t blame them. Modern-day radio country has become a lame honky-pop hybrid that leaves some listeners with the distinct impression that most country fans, let alone musicians, are narrow-minded overzealous hicks. Don’t worry, The Alkali Flats is not that kind of country band. They don’t want to put a boot in anyone’s ass, and they don’t think tractors are sexy. Occasionally they are known for having an achy breaky heart, but majority of the time they have a true-blue, old school honky-tonk country band that would make Hank Williams Sr. proud.
Tim White, one of four multi-instrumentalist singers in the five-piece band, has this to say to people who don’t like country music, “Country music is not something you can pretend to like. You don’t like it because it’s cool. Either it hits you in the heart or it doesn’t.”
This tug on the ol’ heartstrings is what led to The Alkali Flats being formed back in 2002. Chris Harvey, one of two remaining founding members, confirms their passion for the music, “We’ve all been playing in bands since we were just teenagers but we started this band because it’s the music we grew up with and love.” Laughing, he adds, “There is a great picture on Facebook of Tim at about 8 years old wearing a big cowboy hat and plaid shirt on stage singing some country song.”
These honky-tonk heroes have been lucky enough to spread their lifelong love affair with country music to six albums, the latest of which will be released in May. Their music has also taken them far and wide: two European tours, one full U.S. tour and countless “Nevada tours.”
“We like to play off the beaten path, places like Al the Wop’s in Locke [Calif.]. But our favorite thing to do is play small towns in Nevada,” says Scott Prawalsky. “We get to play to people that dance and drink all night long and love the music as much as we do.”
I had a chance to sit on a front porch, crack open a couple of beers with all five honky-tonkers (including Sasha Prawalsky and Mark Miller) and get the lowdown on the new album, some country music history and more on why they continue to play country music.
With this style of country music being so far off most people’s play list, what attracted you guys to this style?
Tim White: I think we all got it from our parents. We all grew up with country music in one form or another. Mark got a lot of it from his parents, so did I and Chris grew up with some awesome old-timey stuff.
Chris Harvey: Tim here has been playing this style of music for well over half his life; he introduced me to a lot of the cool stuff about 20 years ago.
Sasha Prawalsky: I think playing this style of music brings us to the place we enjoy playing; our music seems to appeal to the crowd at Al the Wop’s, the down dirty crowd. That’s just where we like to be.
Mark Miller: I know one thing that draws all of us to this style of music is we all enjoy bands that have a shtick, kind of a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor to it, and our style of country music definitely has that.
How long did you work on the new album?
Tim: Well we tracked the entire thing in four hours. [Laughs] But we did set about recording it differently than we have recorded in the past. Our friend JR had the idea to record it at The Hangar using some of their vintage equipment and record it live. We huddled around a single mic in the center of the room just like they did in the ‘40s and ‘50s. We wanted to get that real raw, gritty sound.
Scott Prawalsky: It was the funnest recording session I have ever had. We invited 30 or 40 of our friends, made it a potluck dinner and recorded 18 songs in four hours in front of a live audience.
Chris: To be fair we practiced our asses off so we could record so quickly; we nailed most of the record on the first take and the rest of it in two or three [takes]. There are some little imperfection but that’s what we wanted.
Sasha: I like the imperfection. It’s who we are. I think the new album is a very good representation of what you would get if you came to see us live.
A couple years ago you were playing a song called “The Spade Cooley Stomp”; were you able to include any more dark humor on the new album? [Spade Cooley was known as a Western swing musician and an actor from the ‘50s but is more infamously known for being convicted of beating his wife to death.]
Scott: Not dark humor but there’s some ridiculous humor, some barnyard humor. We cover “Ugly and Slouchy (That’s How I Like ‘Em).”
Chris: [Laughs] No nothing as dark as “Spade Cooley Stomp.” We kind of stopped playing that song. Most people would stare at us like we were from outer space when we played it.
Tim: Yeah most people have no idea who Spade Cooley is. If you know who he is, you think it’s funny but only about one in 40 people at the shows would get it.
Mark: And I think those people were drunk. We should start playing that song again. It’s a good song.
So you guys are headed back to Europe…
Chris: Yeah we are basing out of Belgium and hitting several other countries; we are just waiting to hear back from our friends over there. We have been really lucky in Europe. Last time we went we had never played France before. We had over 200 people show up dressed in cowboy hats and boots, and they line danced all night. They really have an appreciation for old authentic American country music over there.
Mark: There are a lot of bands going over there and doing rockabilly or other American roots music but not a lot doing honky-tonk. I thought it was interesting that they had seen the upright bass before and the hollow body guitars, but everywhere we went they were really impressed by the steel guitar. It was a real novelty for them.
Any plans for more U.S. tours?
Mark: Yes. There’s more that we want to do but we have to be realistic about it and decide what’s best for the group.
Chris: We get asked to do more than we can. We get invited to some really cool stuff that we’d like to do but we just can’t. After all, we all have day jobs
Anything you guys want to add?
Chris: I’d like to mention the Kickstarter thing. Kickstarter is a new thing online, we appealed to our friends to make a donation on Kickstarter to help us make the new album. We had 81 friends donate between $10 and $500.
Mark: We had a $2500 goal and our friends really came through and helped us well exceed that. We were able to put out a much better record than we expected.
Scott: What was really cool was in the past all our records were do-it-yourself, burned discs with stickers and lost money. Because of our friends’ help we could actually afford to have it professionally packaged, mastered and mixed.
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