Finding Waylon Speed
If you want to find Waylon Speed, you’ll have to go to Williston. Park on a quiet street in front of a nondescript industrial building with desert-tan steel siding. Follow the smell of cigarettes and the dirty tones of a tuning guitar past alleys of refrigerators and pallets of printers. At the top of the stairs, turn left.
Waylon Speed occupies a space between spaces. It’s a gap between an office and a warehouse that lacks the qualities of both. Unoccupied, the space fell to Rev. Chad Hammaker, one of the office’s daytime employees and guitarist for Waylon Speed. Since the band formed they’ve filled the space with everything they are.
“It’s been a nice, safe haven for us,” says bassist Noah Crowther. “I’ll be bummed the day we have to leave.”
The band recorded their second album and took many of their publicity photos here. It was also the site for their most recent music video. And like a forge or a workshop, the room speaks volumes about the men that have made it their own. The walls tell of destruction and hours of intensive, focused work, punctuated by a snapped and partially-burned neck of a guitar in the insulation. It’s hot as an oven in here. The floors are covered in dusty carpets and stamped cigarette butts. A single eight-foot-long fluorescent bulb lights the room. Extension cables snake across the floor to panels of foot switches, amps and the PA system. The heart of the space is a clearing around a drum set.
Waylon Speed gathers around on stools and boxes. They’re happy to talk, smoking and futzing with guitars, sweat shiny on tattoos in the glare of an industrial spotlight. Since the last time you saw them, they’ve each lost a considerable amount of hair. Gone are the shoulder-length manes and the ZZ Top beards. It’s easy to hide behind so much hair, but with at least eight inches missing, their appearance is mild, clean-cut and almost tame. They’ll tell you anything you want — you just have to ask.
Waylon Speed are:
Noah Crowther, bass and vocals
Kelly Ravin, guitar and vocals
Rev. Chad Hammaker, guitars and Vocals
Justin Crowther, drums and harmonica
The band formed in March 2009, when the guys met at Honkey Tonk Tuesday, an open jam session at Radio Bean, organized by Brett Hughes. It was the Crowther brothers on drums and bass, with Hammaker on guitar. Kelly stepped in for the set and they didn’t talk until after they had played two straight hours of honkey tonk and classic country songs. The three had previously been in a band and were looking for another guitarist to round out their group, so they set up a practice with Kelly.
Since then, they’ve been at work sharpening their sounds on a kind of rock music that they’ve made their own. The descriptions have been many, and the guys provide a few examples:
“Heavy-metal-speed-western.”
“Filthy-rotten-outlaw-dirt-rock.”
The Washington Post described them as “a cross between Metallica and the Lumineers, with an unnecessary dash of Prince showmanship.”
The band remains ambivalent about this.
As far as influences go, Waylon Speed likes to err on the side of vague, not pinning anything down too firmly. Kelly admits he’s currently in “the Tom Petty wormhole,” but beyond that, they take what they can from wherever they can. From listening, the traces of the many strains of American rock are identifiable. There is the twanging charm of the Lumineers and there are the heavy chords of Metallica as well as at least a handful of other bands with signature riffs. Prince doesn’t seem evident as of this writing.
“It’s rock, at the end of the day,” Noah says.
Whatever it is, these cowboys can two-step to it, and the punk kids seem to like it, too. They’ve won a Daysie award for Best Americana artist from Burlington’s alt-weekly Seven Days. On Aug. 16, they will share the Burlington Ferry with DJ Disco Phantom and local punk band Rough Francis at Rock the Boat (Fun fact: Rough Francis and Waylon Speed are wiffleball rivals). This November, they’re going on a cruise to the Bahamas, performing alongside the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“It’s almost experimental,” says Noah, describing the variety of styles the band combines. “We’re trying it out on people to see how far these guys will go with us. It’s fun, and for better or for worse, that’s what we do.”
Ravin says the secret is simple:
“If you do anything with a good attitude and not come off like a prick, people are going to like it,” he says.
This year, the band released their fourth studio album, Kin, on the label Crow on Ten Records. They laid down the tracks over eight days in Manhattan, a far cry from their comfortable attic in Williston, or the Phish Barn outside of Burlington, where they recorded their second and third albums, respectively. Noah says changing recording venues has served them well.
“The album we recorded here was a very do-it-yourself thing,” he says. “So the sound wasn’t my favorite. The second was at the Phish Barn and current is our best to date, I think. Soundwise, I’m proud of it.”
“[Valance] was one we were most proud of to date,” says Kelly. “We put that out, and then it was like, ‘Alright, let’s build from here.’”
And indeed, Kin is a finely-tuned album with many of the same signature themes and sounds as Valance. On a technical level, Kin has a balanced, even-keeled feel, which puts the attention squarely on Waylon Speed’s songwriting and not the parts that compose it. While making use of the familiar structures and patterns of country, rock and blues, Waylon Speed settles solidly into their own thematic elements in Kin, crafting songs that sound entirely their own.
The track “Until It All Ends” is a shining example of the sound Waylon Speed has been honing and leans strongly in the “country” direction of their songwriting. Featuring riffs and tones that you might find a country tune, the band is able to apply their own spin and move the song in a harder, faster direction.
“Union” is another example of the band’s versatility. This one’s a tight-sounding and straightforward rock number that progresses with crisp, rhythmic chords and builds to a soaring guitar solo. Kelly and Noah deliver this line in the chorus:
I’ll make my own way on the way down
Hit the ground before I secede the Union
“Union” isn’t the only song like this on Kin. These are songs about declaring independence, sticking to your guns or getting the hell out of Dodge, best experienced at full volume while driving at high speeds with the windows rolled down.
alance and Kin make up cornerstones of the Waylon Speed name, two distinct examples of what the band is capable of and have produced during their ride so far. The other records, they joke, could be boxed set material.
For Justin, the new record was an opportunity to reflect.
“I learned how amazing the first stuff we ever did was,” he says. “It makes me appreciate how far we’ve come along, to think that’s where we started and we can reexamine that.”
The more these musicians work, the more grateful they are to be collaborating with each other. It’s a lottery of personalities that they seem to have won. They don’t have the bickering battle of egos that destroys many other bands, and instead avoid that dynamic by calling each other on being a total asshole (when it’s deserved). For the most part, that does the trick.
“There have been conversations where if it was a different person, we would have completely lost it,” says Chad.
Waylon Speed aren’t above drinking whiskey out of paper cups, they’ve put ink into each other’s skin and detonated entire bundles of ill-constructed fireworks at a rest stop in Kentucky. It’s almost too rock and roll to believe, but listening to them recount the tales so matter-of-factly, you can’t help but trust. This is the band your parents warned you about.
In the future, Waylon Speed hopes to again embark on a national tour. The group estimates that there are some 20 bands that they aspire to be on the same circuit with or playing to the same crowd. But as they keep developing, they seem to perform with more finesse and skill than the bands they play alongside. They’re growing into the role of headliner, and to have them as the opening act for a larger band that may not have as great of a live show can make the bill a little lopsided. As a result, they’re looking for shows outside of their corner in northern New England.
The band doesn’t exactly have a motto, but do they have a few things that appear to have served them well.
“We try to be real people,” says Noah. “Some of the musicians I’ve met were down to earth because they took a minute to talk to you. We try to be nice guys and make friends with people. We’ve noticed that seems to work.”
His brother Justin offers something slightly different.
“Show up on time, remember the sound guy’s name and always be willing to learn from the people you’re playing with.”
