Handsome Family mystery is solved
True Dective series helped uncover the alternative country sound of husband and wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks
Three years ago Matthew Mcconaughey accepted an Academy Award for his depiction of Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club.
His steady rise to prominence – dubbed the ‘Mcconnaisance’ – began with critically acclaimed performances in The Lincoln Lawyer, Mud, Killer Joe and Magic Mike but perhaps most significantly in the award winning HBO production True Detective.
The brooding surreal thriller set in the bayous of Louisiana, featured a haunting theme song composed by a group who had for years been shrouded in obscurity.
As with Mcconaughey, the success of True Detective catapulted The Handsome Family into the public arena with their song Far From Any Road garnering millions of Spotify plays as a result.
The husband and wife twopiece from Albuquerque, New Mexico suddenly became very visible for the first time in 12 years.
“I have no idea how that happened,” says Rennie Sparks – songwriter, vocalist and wife of bandmate Brett.
“We never spoke to anyone from HBO or from the show we just got a call from someone who brokers these kind of transactions, asked would we be up for it if it happened, we said ‘yes please’ to everything.
“We also didn’t know that it wasn’t going to be on the second season when that came out so it was all a bit crazy.
Far From Any Road captured perfectly the feel of the jarring, spooky drama.
“It was really good for us because it helped people who hadn’t heard us – or who had heard us under the wrong context – understand us a little bit better.
“If you’re looking for a typical Americana band we’re probably not that, but if you like dark
American stories that are kind of tinged with the supernatural then we’re your band.”
Last year brought the release of their 10th album, Unseen, 10 songs by a couple both worldfamous and happily invisible.
They weave haunting melodies into stories, that usually have a defined beginning, middle and end.
The band take inspiration from old folk songs and even children’s nursery rhymes when coming up with ideas for new pieces of work.
Songs like My Darling Clementine, and On Top Of Old Smoky capture the bands fascination with re-working these ancient tunes.
“A lot of the story songs that were played to me as a child were terrifying as a lot of traditional nursery rhymes are,” says Rennie, “they had a lasting influence on me”.
“They’re really scary songs and we expect children to sing them and not listen to the words, it’s quite strange.”
It is this focus on music as a method of storytelling that has drawn Brett and Rennie to Irish shores time and again.
She says, “People are well versed in the art of story songs in Ireland.
“In America, people are always looking for something that they can dance to, and the idea of listening to song with a story is foreign to a lot of people, but in Ireland we don’t have to explain... they know.
“I’m interested in writing about things that are on the edge of reality, things that are hard to see, and maybe things that we don’t have words for – maybe songs can help us understand a little bit better what it feels like to be alive.
“It can be really spooky and really scary to be alive, especially these days.”
The duo’s music is all the more haunting and unsettling when set against the backdrop of America’s political climate.
Loose references to shadows and darkness permeate Rennie’s opinions of modern America, she maintains deep suspicions regarding the direction the country has taken.
She says: “I think we’re a country that’s at war with it’s own reality, nobody wants to see whats really happening in front of
us. ‘America is a place where a lot of dark things goes on underneath the veil of the shiny and the new.
“I like the story of Easter Island where they built all these statues to impress each other but in doing so depleted their island of all it’s sources of food and shelter and ended up starving to death “I can see tourists coming to America to look at empty skyscrapers in a few hundred years and saying, ‘what were they thinking’.”
Like most bands who have been around as long as they have, Brett and Rennie seem to take huge satisfaction from performing their work live.
They’ve done so on many occasions on Irish shores, Other Voices in Dingle is a stand-out event for the duo who have fond memories of time spent on the west coast.
Christy Moore (left) is a friend of the band and has covered many of their songs, Rennie fondly describes him as a “lightbulb salesman – because he exudes light.”
They are showing no signs of slowing down either – kicking off an Irish tour in Dublin, they are also playing dates in Kilkenny and Cork.
When asked about their longevity, Rennie laughs: “It’s like our manager used to say ‘they just can’t find a bullet that will kill you’, they keep shooting us and we keep rising up stronger.” lthe Handsome Family play Dublin’s Vicar Street on Thusday 27 April, tickets priced €30 from Ticketmaster. They also play the Kilkenny Roots Festival on Friday April 28 and Cork’s Crane Lane on Saturday April 29.
‘It was really good for us because it helped people who hadn’t heard us – or who had heard us under the wrong context – understand us a little bit better’