“Thought It Over”
from the album Join Dan Sartain
2006
iTunes
MP3 – “Thought It Over” [right-click/save-as]
“Oh, wow! There’s a pool here, man! On the boat!” shouts Dan Sartain, calling from the deck of a ferry leaving Amsterdam for England. “I’m gonna have to cut some jeans up and jump in!” Sartain, 25, just played to hyped crowds in the Dutch capital, where he also smoked a ton of primo weed. (He recommends the “AK-47” — “a good, clean stone.”) The native Alabaman — who looks like a young Howard Hughes crossed with a gas-station attendant and writes songs that sound like the Stray Cats fronted by a cracked Southern troubadour — has generated a growing fan base in the U.S. and a much bigger one in Europe.
“I just tell people I sound like Chris Isaak on acid, hooked up to jumper cables,”he muses. “Yeah, that seems about right.” Join Dan Sartain, his latest record, modulates classically tuneful confessionals with jerky post-punk weirdness, a dollop of rockabilly, and whimsical lyrics about strange dreams, coy little girls, and boys with guns. “I don’t just want to be a ‘feelings’ guy,” he says. “Even Morrissey is funny. He makes fun of fat girls!” As a teenager, Sartain began writing songs at a time when smoking pot and huffing glue were his other favorite hobbies. He sent demos to Swami Records, owned by Rocket From the Crypt singer John Reis, who signed him in 2003. Even with a record deal, Sartain’s songwriting MO isn’t terribly professional. “I write stoned all the time,” he says. “Weed has a weird effect on me. I smoke pot and get very productive. That’s what I keep telling my drug counselor. Just kidding.”
In the States, Sartain has often toured by himself, driving alone cross-country, sleeping in Burger King parking lots. But in Europe, he’s already taken off. Sartain toured with hot Brit band the Kooks and was invited to perform at the NME Awards — but only if the legendarily unreliable Pete Doherty didn’t show. “Pete turned up, and I went back to my dressing room to get more pot, and there were all these Nation of Islam dudes with earpieces who wouldn’t let me by,” Sartain says. “I didn’t get to play, I got harassed by these dudes, and I didn’t even get to meet Kanye West!”
Sartain had issues with Alabama growing up, but he finds himself defending it whenever he leaves. “I mean, nobody walks down the street in a Grand Wizard outfit,” Sartain says of Birmingham, where he and his wife just bought a house. “The craziest thing I ever saw was a guy in overalls beating the shit out of a pig with his bare hands.” As a kid, Sartain fell in love with Sonic Youth, Bauhaus and the Wu-Tang Clan while zoning out in class. He finally dropped out of school in ninth grade and ended up working a slew of menial jobs — dishwasher, pizza boy, janitor at the YMCA. “I was on mushrooms last night, and I was thinking I might be working the rest of my life to maintain what I have,” he says. “But that’s fine. I’m just happy not to have a real job, man.”