Tinkertown builds a debut album — hear it at the Burren
Tinkertown’s show at the Burren Dec. 6 will feature most of the debut album “American Gothic,” plus a couple of surprise covers including a classic-rock nugget that they struck up spontaneously at a rehearsal.
The news about Tinkertown is that Tanya Donelly’s drummer, the Juliana Hatfield Three’s bass player, and guitarist-about-town Dean Fisher are all in the same band. The other news is that they’re all the same guy.
After years as a go-to multi-instrumentalist, Tinkertown is Fisher’s chance to have a dream band built around his own songwriting (he also plays guitar and does some of the singing). But it’s not an ego trip or a solo project: He’s brought along a bunch of seasoned local players and the focal point onstage is Gabriella Lawrence, a striking and classically-trained singer. The two had also worked together in the goth-tinged band, Ghosts & Shadows.
“I feel like I’m basically a band member, that’s always been my thing,” Fisher says. “I didn’t want to make music just for the sake of doing it, I wanted to have something that felt complete. So the album is very focused on song structure, that’s what we wanted to do. I didn’t want it to be obtuse art rock, even though there are a few funny time signatures on it.” As for his abilities, “I can play a little bit of everything but I wouldn’t call myself a virtuoso on anything. and nobody’s going to ask me to be guest vocalist on their album. But the reason I feel comfortable with this is that I’m so confident about the material.”
Given his background it’s no surprise Tinkertown gravitates to melodic pop, though it stretches from accordion-driven Americana to dark near-metal. Fisher wrote a batch of songs himself; he and Lawrence collaborated on the rest. The song “Code Blue” was born when she shouted a rude two-word phrase at him. “I said ‘Okay, that sounds like a chorus, and now we need some verses. So I started sending her music and we wrote over it. I felt she was open as I am to all this music, I love her earnestness and the fact that she’s not afraid to go in different directions. That’s why the album is so diverse, we both wanted to see how far out we could take it.’
The rest of the band — keyboardist Elizabeth Steen, bassist Joe McMahon, guitarist Russell Chudnofsky, and drummer Chris Anzalone — all have stacks of credits (the last in both Juliana Hatfield and Roomful of Blues). Tinkertown’s show at the Burren Dec. 6 will feature most of the debut album “American Gothic,” plus a couple of surprise covers including a classic-rock nugget that they struck up spontaneously at a rehearsal.
Fisher’s own history goes back to orchestral training at Duxbury High School and drums at Berklee, he was part of Hatfield’s band during her high-profile “My Sister” days, and toured with Donelly after she left Belly (he and Donelly are now a married couple). And having seen a bit of commercial success with those artists he’s not hungry for more; instead he plans to keep Tinkertown as a Boston-based project, with more recording and hometown shows
“Juliana was a good mentor and I learned a lot from playing with her. With the commercial success, I don’t think anybody was 100 percent comfortable with it. We’d meet famous people and it wasn’t a thrill, some of those low level celebrities can be obnoxious people. That’s one thing I love about Tinkertown, they’re some of the biggest hearted people I know.”
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