Interview with The Comancheros: ‘Metal is a pretty common segue into the dirtier side of country music’

Missouri heavy and western band The Comancheros, who have been described as ‘ZZ Top goes Star Wars’, have released their third, hard and fast and gritty album, Memphis to Mexico.

The band comprises vocalist and guitarist Tanner Jones and drummer R. Michael Cook, who started teaching lessons at the same music store around 2013 and quickly began writing music together. Bassist and vocalist Jon Green, who grew up with Cook, moved to Missouri once The Comancheros were officially put together. ‘Comancheros’, historically, has several meanings but most commonly means ‘comrades’: ‘There’s an historic meaning, it comes up in a lot of western movies,’ Jones explained. (Where the word often denotes a ‘trader’ of goods.) ‘The movie ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ was set in Missouri where we live, one of the antagonists in it is called a ‘comanchero’. We played in a lot of metal bands growing up (laughs) but my dad said if I ever had a country band, it had to be called that, even though back then, I was opposed to ever playing country!’

Memphis to Mexico marks something of a new direction for them; it’s heavier, rockier and faster and the riffs are dirtier and sludgier: ‘With our previous albums, we were trying intentionally to be in the country grid,’ Jones said. ‘But with this one, we were more lax on that. The opener, ‘Old Mexico’, sounds more Van Halen. On this one, we didn’t know in advance what it’d be, we just focused on songs we wanted to write. We had 25 songs and picked our favourite 10.’

‘Everything in Missouri is named after something else’

The album title references their own location: ‘Everything in Missouri is named after something else (laughs). Our town, Columbia, is between Memphis, Missouri, and Mexico, Missouri. I did actually go to the real Mexico when we were making this record.’ For me, one of the catchiest songs on the album is ‘Shoot Me Down’, which opens with one the most gloriously dirty blues riffs I’ve heard recently. ‘That song, we did it a different way on the first album but we re-recorded it. Michael wrote it. It’s about when you’re drinking yourself into a stupor, when you’re talking to the liquor. I think he wrote it before he got married, he’s been married a while. Or maybe he was writing about what I was doing (laughs).’

I tell him how much I like the slide guitar in it and ask if he’s playing it: ‘All the slide guitar is Greg for The Kentucky Headhunters, they’ve always been one of our favourite bands, we were so happy to have him on this.’ I ask if he’s ever tried playing slide guitar with a beer bottle as people have told me it’s fun: ‘Michael has, he’ll try playing it with anything! If it’s got a flat surface, it’ll generally work!’

‘Metal is a pretty common segue into the dirtier side of country music‘

It took moving away from his roots to endear Jones to his childhood music scene: ‘My first band growing up was AC/DC, they were a big influence of our sound,’ he said. ‘I went to school in St. Paul, Missouri, but I grew up in a house in the woods, I kind of lived in the forest, we had a dirt road. Getting into metal was the opposite of what I was used to running around in the forest (laughs). Metal is a pretty common segue into the dirtier side of country music. I started getting into country music in the city, it was what everyone would listen to. It became a tether to home. I got really into Hank Williams and a lot of my metal buddies started playing country guitar. It was more of a necessity.’

Playing non-stop since 2015, The Comancheros have stormed the stage with Randy Rogers, The Cadillac Three, Drake White, The Steel Woods, Alabama, Whiskey Myers, Blackberry Smoke and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. These experiences have sharpened their spurs and inspired the band to create a sound that exemplifies what it means to be a modern-day cowboy: heavy and western.

And whilst they all contribute to the songwriting, it can be very hard to predict which songs will become crowd favourites: ‘I’m always surprised by which ones are people’s favourites,’ Jones said. ‘I expected ‘If I were A Cowboy’ or ‘Blue Yodel in G’ to be the most popular but I’m not sure that they are. ‘Old Mexico’ is one of my favourites and ‘Happy Birthday’, I love to play it. Jon wrote it in quarantine on his birthday when he couldn’t go out. It comes off the danciest live, I always see people start to move.’ ‘If I was A Cowboy’ has a tremendous energy, erupting with a Wild West style riff, underpinned by a chuggy, bluesey riff: ‘For that one, we had a music video idea that might still happen. The song’s about somebody daydreaming about how much cooler they’d be if they were a cowboy, how much better life could be.’

‘It has a 70’s stadium rock vibe’

Big intros are a defining element of all of their songs, including crowd favourite ‘We Own The Night’ (2020), which has a stronger country vibe than any of the tracks on their latest album, albeit with a good dose of rock, and in which they also refer to themselves as ‘heavy and western…coming to town’: ‘It goes down really well live, it’s our most enjoyed music video. It’s very singalongy, it has a 70’s stadium rock vibe,’ Jones said. ‘Everyone can relate to owning their own destiny. I wrote the guitar part and Michael wrote the lyrics.’

Their next album is already underway: ‘We’re going to record the next album in January, we’ve revamped a few songs that didn’t make the cut for this album,’ Jones said. ‘There’ll be 10 songs, including two songs that didn’t make it for the last album called ‘Guitar Chords and Swinging Doors’ and ‘Drunk Damnation’. On ‘Guitar Chords and Swinging Doors’, I imagine someone in a cabin in the woods whose wife has left them. There’s a lot of insinuation that life isn’t going to be the way you thought. It’s got an acoustic, 90’s country vibe. ‘Drunk Damnation’ sounds like Black Sabbath sonically, not in a scary sense (laughs) more Sabbath four. I tried to write it after I watched ‘Black Sabbath’ (a 1963 horror anthology film directed by Mario Bava). It’s a heavy blues toon! When I was writing it, I was thinking about this guy who had passed away recently who was never sad, he was always partying and enjoying his life. He died in a motorcycle accident. He was one of my favourite people to be around and I thought “How do you celebrate that?” A lot of the lyrics are about that.’

If he could go for a drink with anyone, he picks Lemmy from Motörhead and Johnny Cash: ‘Just to have them meet each other,’ he said. ‘I feel they have a very similar spirit even though they’re in such different realms.’

(Top photo from left to right: Jon, Tanner and Michael.)