Nashville is stuck in a rhythm.
This rhythm has formed a musical cycle, but Americana folk band, The Vespers, have set out to break out from the monotony.
The Nashville-based group released its latest album, “Sisters and Brothers,” Feb. 10 and will celebrate the release in Knoxville on Friday night.
The Vespers are comprised of brothers, Bruno and Taylor Jones, and sisters, Callie and Phoebe Cryar. Though forged from differing backgrounds, the sibling band found a way to combine their musical interests to create a rootsy, folk sound.
“It’s one of those things where, like,we really can’t take credit for finding it,” Taylor Jones, the group’s drummer said. “It’s just like it was a pure result of just sifting through all the differences. They (Callie and Phoebe) didn’t know the songs that we knew and we didn’t know the songs that they knew so we were forced to land in a middle ground some where none of us had ever been to.”
Now that this middle-ground has become home for The Vespers, the band released its third studio album in the same fashion, but with a bit of maturity – the kind of maturity that you’d find in a classic ’90s sitcom.
“It’s like when you watch ‘Full House’ or some TV show and in season one, Michelle is a baby,” Jones explained. “Well, by season six, she’s like a grown up, like kindergartener with a personality and is spunky and it’s a little bit more entertaining. That’s how we are. The people are finally starting to get to know us because they’ve gotten to see us grow up, right before their eyes. This record now is like, here’s maturity. Here’s what we’ve learned. We all kind of turned into adults.”
As Danny Tanner would probably agree, with this maturity comes responsibility.
Nashville has fallen victim to many music fads throughout the years, Taylor Jones said. But as “Break The Cycle,” the first song on the band’s new album suggests, The Vespers hope to be more than that.
“We did not want to be categorized in that at all,” Taylor Jones said. “It’s about standing on your own two feet and being yourself, which goes back to the theme of the record – be yourself, take care of one another, that kind of stuff that we wanna talk about, that we wanna preach on this record.”
The Vespers shoot to break this cycle with songwriting; staying true and being honest with oneself is key in Taylor Jones’ book.
“I live in a city where people are like, ‘Okay, let’s write a song and you know we gotta talk about a truck, you know we gotta talk about beer and we know we gotta say words like tailgate and headlight,’” Taylor Jones said. “That’s what growing up in Nashville does to you.
“The truth is, if you’re gonna have to sing a song for the rest of your life, you better freakin’ mean it anyway.”
The Vespers will perform Friday night at The Square Room. Tickets are $12 in advance and doors open at 7 p.m.
