Natural chemistry is one of the hardest things to find for a musician. You can do as many collaborations and sit-ins as you want, but finding one or two other musicians who you mesh with consistently is no easier than finding a significant other to spend the rest of your life with. Andrew Trube and Anthony Farrell, the guitarist and organ player who make up the Austin-based duo known as Greyhounds, were lucky. The two musicians had a chance encounter and found their chemistry almost immediately.
“After I graduated high school some friends told me ‘you should play with some folks.’ They mentioned LA Weekly, so I looked through that and the first ad I saw was Andrew’s ad looking for a keyboard player. I played something for him on the phone and he was like, ‘why don’t you come down to the warehouse?’ He was working for a music production company and him and some friends had a band already. We jammed, ended up hitting it off, and just kept playing together,” says Farrell.
Eventually Trube and Farrell decided to make Austin their home base, partially because Trube had close ties with the city having grown up nearby, but mainly because they dug the “weirdness” and found that their brand of funk and blues-infused soul music was embraced in the local scene. Playing regular gigs around Austin at institutions like the Continental Club, the two developed a sound they half-jokingly refer to as “Hall and Oates meets ZZ Top.”
“Billy [Gibbons] and Dusty [Hill of ZZ Top] both sing, Hall and Oates both sing, they’re both two different guys – especially Hall and Oates – like yin and yang. That’s kind of how we are. I think that’s why we work so well together, because we share a common goal but we come at it different ways. You got that Texas blues stuff that I grew up playing and Anthony has the R&B and the soul,” says Trube.
After gigging and making music together for the last fifteen years, the duo recently signed to the legendary Ardent Music, the Memphis-based studio and label best known for bringing Big Star to the world. Greyhounds were one of the very first bands signed to the newly relaunched label with a three-album deal that is part of Ardent’s efforts to carry on its legacy. Given the label’s historical relationship with Stax Records, it makes sense that Ardent would sign one of the funkiest, most soulful bands out there today, who also happen to carry a sound that strikes many as “vintage.” Their new full-length album, Accumulator, will be the first of these releases and Trube and Farrell have high hopes. The two share a sense of pride in not only carrying the Ardent torch, but also in being part of the long history between the label and Austin.
“There’s been a long history of Memphis and Austin over the years, especially with Ardent. ZZ Top recorded there, Stevie Ray Vaughn did his [Family Style] album with [his brother] Jimmie right before he died; that was the biggest record he had ever done I think,” says Trube.
Accumulator sees Greyhounds breathing fresh life into their sound and providing listeners with a perfect cross-section of exactly what they are all about. The duo captures the energy and vibe of their live show with songs that are just as good for dancing along with as they are for chilling out to. Linking everything together is the chemistry of two musicians sharing a common goal to deliver funky, soulful tunes in a way that is straight up honest and as real as it gets.
“We just love the old funky shit. I think people try to polish everything too much. I think we both have a similar sensibility about what we think is good, but it’s all about the music in the end and we want to do what makes us feel good,” says Farrell.
Even on sadder songs like “All Over But The Shoutin’” that focus on relationships gone sour, there is a sense of excitement you can hear in both the playing and silky baritone of Anthony Farrell. If nothing else, the act of making and listening to music should be about enjoyment, and if there’s one thing to take away from Accumulator it’s the two musicians enjoying themselves immensely.
“This album is an accumulation of us up to this point,” says Trube before Farrell elaborates on what that means. “Things have changed so much since we started [making music together]. We’ve learned some things along the way. It’s been fun even though it can be a struggle. Now it’s like we realized that this is just what we do.”
This is a good thing considering how busy the two stay between playing as Greyhounds and touring the world as members of Florida swamp funk band JJ Grey & Mofro. Life as a professional musician isn’t always easy, and plenty have burned out, but after 15 years of playing together Anthony Farrell and Andrew Trube feel better than ever about the life they chose and the music they make. Natural chemistry, of course, is vital. Music lovers can take comfort knowing that Greyhounds will be around for a long time, a point Farrell can’t help but emphasize.
“We’ve kind of come to the realization that there’s not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you know, like you succeed and then it’s over. You do this forever. This is what we do and we don’t have any plans of quitting.”
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