White Denim

White Denim, one of the very best rock bands to emerge this millennium, have gone through rapid changes in the 2020s, and now open an exciting new chapter with the wondrous album, ‘12’, which arrives rich in hot tunes and fresh invention.

It’s always been hard to keep pace with James Petralli’s group, ever since they first exploded out of Austin, Texas in ’08 with hyper-kinetic post-punk bangers like Shake Shake Shake and I Start To Run. There was delicious romance in the original trio’s MO, as they hatched intrepid sounds together in a 1940s Spartan trailer parked up in woodland outside the city. James duly raced on through shifting line-ups and kaleidoscopic shades of soul, jazz and Southern rock, always with a feel of in-the-moment authenticity.

As for so many musicians, the pandemic forced Petralli into a radical rethink in both life and creative process. Going into White Denim’s twelfth long-player, he relocated his family to Los Angeles, and, barred from the usual workouts “on the floor” under COVID, he plunged deep into the science of assembling tracks digitally, with contributions from players he’d sometimes never even meet.

The results on ‘12’ are intricate, hi-tech and forward-facing, yet also somehow still of a piece with the questing ambition, rootsy swing and uplifting way with melody we’ve come to adore about Petralli’s music.

“It was out of the window with even the idea of a band,” says James, speaking from the converted one-car garage adjoining his Pasadena residence which now serves as White Denim’s HQ. “On this record, there are many bands, sometimes in the room with me, sometimes miles away in a remote collaboration, and that process opened up a lot of possibility for me.”

By way of example, he explains how he heard a track by Chicago’s Finom (aka Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham), then speculatively reached out to them, and soon had them voicing on ‘12’’s sun-kissed soul smash, ‘Swinging Door’.

“It was like, I don’t have the budget to fly them to Los Angeles or Austin, or to get myself to Chicago,” Petralli laughs, “but let’s see what they send back. Suddenly, there was no barrier: if I feel like, there’s a great drummer in New York who I want to hear on a particular song, let’s see what he does, too! Then, there’s another great drummer somewhere else: why not have four of them on a song at once? Or, I’m hearing strings on a track, and I don’t want to represent them on a synthesizer… I definitely indulged in some extravagant personnel choices.”

* * * * *

If ‘12’ is the thrilling sound of Petralli vacating his low-tech comfort zone, it also documents a turbulent and sometimes painful period for his family. Back in Austin, he and his partner Elaine were caring for her father, who passed in spring ’21, and once they’d moved to LA, it fell to James to home-school his kids. Once the pandemic eased, he’d do the school runs and parenting, then make music in between, as well as picking out ideas on a classical guitar while helping the young ’uns drift off to sleep at night.

His lyrics are his response to some of these “difficult things”, but refracted through the glass-half-full sunshine prism of Petralli’s worldview. The exquisitely rippling ‘Light On’ muses on the struggle required sometimes to keep the faith in dark times.

“I found it humorous and slightly askew to overtly reference clichés such as ‘live, laugh, love’ and ‘not all who wander are lost’ in that lyric,” James chuckles, “but this mindset was actually helping us process and survive a tough period in our lives. I’ll be the first to admit that seeing these words, carved and painted into fake wooden panels, hanging on the walls of an AirBnB, often engages the gag reflex – but I believe there’s more than a little something to it.”

Elsewhere, the Marvin Gaye-esque sweep of ‘I Still Exist’ meditates on the motivational importance of creativity. Other themes include the ubiquitous downer of online trolling (‘Flash Bare Ass’), male violence and cycles of abuse (‘The Swinging Door’) and the value in reading books (‘Second Dimension’), until the album’s closing stages zero in on Petralli’s belief in the possibility of love enduring in a nourishing long-term relationship (‘We Can Move Along’), and the importance of kindness (the Prince-ly ‘Hand Out Giving’).

* * * * *

The result of all this endeavour is that James now oversees every aspect of his music’s up-to-the-minute digital production. “This is the first White Denim record where I’ve engineered and been the main producer,” he proudly states. “I’ve touched every sound that’s on there.”

As ever, Petralli takes inspiration, if not specific techniques, from right across popular music’s history. For this project, Scritti Politti’s avant-pop masterpiece from 1985, ‘Cupid & Psyche’, was an influence for its densely detailed sonic texturing, but Petralli says he equally binged on YouTube clips of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Dennis Bovell dubbing it up on the fly.

In terms of actual songwriting, James has been vibing on Nick Lowe (see the rockin’ ‘Flash Bare Ass’), Jonathan Richman, Doug Sahm and Joe Jackson – “these guys who make very energetic, intentional music that’s sophisticated but also willing to have a good time.”

Petralli’s band have always been just that – “sophisticated but also willing to have a good time”. Here, a handful of tracks were initially authored by 2024’s core team – guitarist Cat Clemons (Cat City #2, Precious Child), keyboard man Michael Hunter (Second Dimension) and drummer Matt Young (We Can Move Along) – which James then overlaid with lyrics and vocal melody. “It’s a fun challenge for me,” he says, “it keeps me fresh. I have to learn the changes and get inside of someone else’s world.”

* * * * *

By opening up to different methods of composition and production on ‘12’, James Petralli has succeeded in rejuvenating our precious White Denim, but while keeping continuity at its core.

“If some will see it as a dramatic shift,” reasons James, “I think it’s part of a natural evolution. I’ve actually put in a lot of work to keep the guys that have left the band, or that I have let go, in the circle, at least a little bit.”

So, OG bassist Steve Terebecki, still in Texas, “contributes as and when he pleases”, and original drummer Josh Block, who departed in 2015, not only plays on a couple of tracks, but also mixed the album, and now resides in LA as Petralli’s next-door neighbour!

After the Covid period’s traumas, says James, “It’s hopeful to me on a personal level to talk about mending relationships, and respecting the past. We fell in love with this thing and thought it would be a good idea to pursue as a life together – I never want to lose sight of that vision, which has enabled me the opportunity to keep doing it.”

Therein surely lies ‘12’’s broader message: keep on keepin’ on.