St. Paul’s Janeway explores family ties
Record companies don’t usually like it when a hot band comes in with a wildly noncommercial idea. So imagine how their label felt when the neo-soul band St. Paul & the Broken Bones proposed a trilogy of albums about three generations of frontman Paul Janeway’s family.
“Yeah, they really loved that,” Janeway said with a laugh last week. But he said the new album, “Young Sick Camellia,” was one that he had to make, both to process family issues and to move his band forward musically. Though still steeped in vintage funk and soul, the music is more open to modern electronic influences. The songs tell his own story of growing up in Alabama, and the next two albums will be written from his father’s and grandfather’s perspectives.
“It’s not a natural thing to do, but we’ve done a lot of unnatural things,” Janeway said. “I knew that I wanted to explore the idea of family ties and complications. I grew up in a very Southern family, so I wanted to see where that idea took me. It definitely scratched an itch, and it’s been therapeutic. My grandfather passed away three months ago, so it became a little more haunting. There’s one called ‘Bruised Fruit’ that’s very emotional for me to sing — I thought that would wear off, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
For him, being Southern means absorbing a lot of your early inspiration from the church.
“Not that you don’t have churches in the Northeast, but I grew up in a very religious small town, which made things a little different. Our church was a little more charismatic, and it was our social epicenter. I also grew up with the ideology of hard work instilled in me, along with being personally a little more laid-back.”
The band made the new album with producer Jack Splash, who has a stack of modern R&B gems (Kendrick Lamar, CeeLo Green, John Legend) to his credit.
“It’s a more modern record for sure, but we didn’t want to lose ourselves in modern production. There were a lot of soul bands who went that direction in the ’80s, and they lost what made them sound great. We always want to hear great bass and drums; that’s the foundation with any great R&B band. We did want to get away from people calling us a retro-soul band. If they’re going to call us that now, I’d ask what their definition of a modern soul band is.”
Janeway cuts a striking figure onstage, and many listeners do a double-take when they first realize that the gritty, Otis Reddingtype voice is coming from the white, bespectacled and rather nerdy-looking guy upfront.
“I look at performing as a spiritual experience. I look forward to it as a time when I can transform into something different. It’s still me, but it’s my personality set to 11. It always feels like some sort of release and you feel like it’s a little bit bigger than yourself. This (band) has gotten way further than I ever thought it would, so now it’s out of my hands. It makes you feel like you are a conduit for audience and band to have a real connection.”