It’s rare that an album title so accurately reflects the songs within it. But Life Behind Bars is one of those titles. The collection of songs here gives heartfelt dialogue to The Vandoliers’ frontwoman Jenni Rose’s journey through addiction and gender dysphoria, culminating in her decision earlier this year to publicly come out and live her authentic life as a transwoman.
The ten tracks here manage to tell her remarkable story, all backed by the same country by way of punk rock soundtrack that the band has built their reputation going four records deep. From the very first lines of the opening track “Dead Canary,” Rose digs in for her most personal record yet (“I was running from my shadow/Tried to hide it, but it followed/It found me lying on the corner/My shadow caught me, pulled me under”). What follows is just as heavy lyrically, but balanced out brilliantly with the band’s raucous barroom energy that always sounds like it’s on the verge of bursting into a brawl or a party.
Surprisingly, Tennessee’s homophobic drag ban is partially responsible for this record. As Rose started writing songs for the album, she was still going by her given name and presenting as male while the band was on tour. They just happened to be playing a gig in Nashville when the state’s anti-drag ban started. True to the band’s punk rock ethos, Cory Graves, who also sings, plays trumpet and keyboards in the band, suggested they all wear dresses on stage. Photos of the band went public, national news picked up the story, and plenty of other bands followed their lead. “That was the first time I had ever worn a dress in public, but not the first time I had worn a dress — and then the entire planet saw it,” Rose says. “The wall that I had been keeping this side of me invisible was completely shattered. I wrote down in my journal, ‘Fuck, I think I’m trans.’”
And those initial songs Rose had shown Life Behind Bars producer Ted Hutt – the ones Hutt suggested were too superficial – suddenly got scrapped and turned into a remarkably personal collection packed with some of the band’s best musical moments in their career to date. While the ballad “Your Picture” is sweet and beautiful, the upbeat “Bible Belt,” and “Thoughts And Prayers” are decidedly more rowdy. And lest you think the album is all heady introspection, Josua Ray Walker and Taylor Hunnicutt join the band on “You Can’t Party With the Lights On,” a song that’s destined to be an encore sing-along for years to come.
It’s both a given and probably unfair that Life Behind Bars will be compared to Against Me’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues, Laura Jane Grace’s own brilliant punk album reflecting her own trans journey. Both records clearly stand on their own, come about the subject from different musical genres, and reflect two different people’s own personal emotions and experiences. But both records happen to be profoundly affecting and effective at getting across deeply personal experiences backed by some of their band’s strongest music. Both also happen to be albums that you will come back to again and again decades later.
