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From Primary through to Intermediate, as soon as that school bell rang at 3pm, I would grab my backpack and walk down to the pub, where I’d meet my mother and her friends.
The hot sun would breach through the sunshades onto my raspberry soda, the smell of cigarettes would coat the outdoor air. Inside, the sound of a jukebox, smashing pool balls and pokie machines ripped through the bar.
I always remember standing in awe of this painting of the cast of the 1960s classic, The Magnificent Seven upon their horses, revolvers drawn, hung high over the entrance to the men’s bathroom.
We’re not in some highway bar on Route 66, (admittedly we were in Sunnynook), but it’s this sentimentality, these types of memories that Oklahoma country/folk singer/songwriter, Zach Bryan, captures in his album The Great American Bar Scene.
While I grew up listening to country, in recent years I’ve distanced myself from the genre as it just hasn’t connected with me the same.
It just feels like country music has found itself bogged down in a mainstream pop sound that lacks any form of substance. I understand why people enjoy it, it’s fun, light and easy listening, but I need my cowboys slightly sad and deeply nostalgic, à la; The Highwaymen.
While Zach Bryan doesn’t venture into pop, he does explore folk. He traverses this genre in his sound, but never seems to go too far. It is clearly still country, but with a twist.
I feel like this balance he strikes is displayed elegantly in his single ‘Purple Gas’ featuring the Canadian born Noeline Hofmann.
Zach Bryan has a way with words too, from what I understand of his songwriting process, he begins by writing a poem, before he expands them into these full-bodied symphonies.
These hauntingly gorgeous stories he shares through this writing are done so with such delicate choice in language, it’s profoundly captivating, and lingers in your mind long after the record stops spinning.
To be able to paint such vivid imagery in the theatre of one's mind through a few words and a wicked chord progression is most apparent on ‘Pink Skies’, featuring Watchhouse.
I really can’t talk about Zach Bryan without talking about how his music makes me feel, which in my humble opinion, is what makes his music so masterful. I'd be lying if I said I related directly to the stories being told, some of which are so quintessentially American, however I believe the emotions he invokes through his waiata are fundamentally universal.
Music is everything, everywhere, all at once. It plays at our birthdays, our weddings, our funerals. It can make us laugh, cry, smile, frown, dance or sleep.
But Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene makes me remember.