The Rival Sons on Fourth of July: What's More American Than a Rock Star Bank Robbery?
I've got four mouths to feed
And a woman in doubt
I'm walking in with a gun
And I'll be rich coming out
Yup, been in that exact scenario. Except it was no mouths to feed, no woman, no gun, and me standing in the bank lobby for their “free foam piggy bank” day.
“The Heist” came out in 2012. Rival Sons was already a grinding fixture of rock star aspirations, without widespread acclaim just yet. But God, have they always deserved it. Jay Buchanan, the lead singer of Rival Sons, is a calmly swaying vessel for mystic Western-tinged Rock spirits.
I will fight any man in an underwater trident duel for the right to claim that Jay Buchanan is this generation’s true Rock frontman.
And if you try to say the lead singer of Greta Van Fleet is in that conversation, I implore you to find the nearest deep well and dump yourself in.
That’s that Rock star mystic energy, painting a story…
The Man in the Black Hat walks in, slides the bags across the counter. He’s polite. A gentleman outlaw. He jumps and half-sits up on the counter, with smooth confidence, a 1930’s Boyd Crowder. The traumatized 22-year-old teller slides back bags heavy with small bills. He pulls a crisp one hundred dollar note, folds it longways, and tucks it behind her ear:
“A tip for your services, honey.”
This song flows. I feel the bank robber. I am the bank robber. Everyone say it with me:
I AM
THE BANK ROBBER.
It’s yoga for the outlaw soul. Rival Sons have that talent. This album especially, “Head Down”, was saturated with panoramic Western imagery. On “Manifest Destiny, Pt. 1”, Buchanan floats possibly the most bad-ass opening line to an eight-minute song:
Out on the hunt for Tatanka/the buffalo are only miles away
He’s a storyteller, brush-stroking the plains in your mind and reminding you that once upon a time not so long ago, we raped a culture.
“The Heist” is a fully developed saga in three simple verses, and there’s nothing more American than a desperate man on the run with everything to lose.
Let me just throw on an addendum here to give you a shot of Scott Holiday, the lead guitarist…
He is pure Rock N’ Roll. A Renaissance gentleman Rock N’ Roll outlaw.
This week you may sit in a chair on a lawn with a beer in the sun. You may find solace away from the free-flowing cortisol coursing the American veins, briefly, in interactions with loved ones. In a perfect fourth of July playlist. In the way you turn the meat on the grill. The way the condensation beads off your drink. The small escapes.
But deep down in those veins, Jay Buchanan’s confident proclamation of cool adrenalized outlaw desperation buzzes in you. A steady drumbeat and a firm bass line. On your chair, the sun’s in your eyes, and you imagine what might help: a Black Hat and Bandana. The grill food burns and that crisped char smell to you is just the roiled exhaust of a getaway car.
It’s America’s holiday, you think. A silly fantasy. The outlaw day is dead.
A child bursts out the back screened door with a lit sparkler in each hand. The swinging door sways in and out with momentum.
You only see two blazing pistols and on the breeze, the flutter of loose hundred dollar bills. The trance breaks and miles away you hear the wail of racing sirens, not so distant chaos, and wondering:
Is that day so far gone?
***
Artist Links:
Rival Sons Website
Rival Sons Insta
Songs by Rival Sons to get you bothered:
Manifest Destiny, Pt. 1
Electric Man
Hollow Bones, Pt. 2
Go the distance, and watch this full show from the Bataclan, Paris, February 2020.