THE SUITCASE JUNKET USES FOUND OBJECTS AS INSTRUMENTS
MUSICIAN ALSO A BOOTLEGGER & VISUAL ARTIST
When you put on ‘Pile Driver’ (April 21
/ Signature Sounds), the new record by The Suitcase Junket, you would
think that the band has four members, and yet there’s only one and few
overdubs were made. Yes, the Suitcase Junket is a one-man band and a
damn good one, with catchy melodies, imagistic lyrics that stick in your
consciousness, and enough energy to impress the festival crowds for
whom he’s played at Mountain Jam, Joshua Tree, Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass, and Green River. He calls his sound and ingenuity required to
construct it “Swamp Yankee.” However, ‘Pile Driver’s’ constant is the
Suitcase Junket’s remarkable songwriting, with rousing choruses
underpinned with gritty, distorted guitar and imagistic, evocative
verses.
It all started
with a guitar in a dumpster. “Every spring when the students graduate, a
lot of them get rid of stuff. They call it hippie Christmas. I’ve fixed
up a dozen bikes and then sold them.” He spied a vintage, Japanese
made, acoustic guitar but it was filled with mold. So naturally, Lorenz
grabbed it and bought some white vinegar. It resonated best in an open C
tuning and he found that his songwriting voice was more focused with
the limitations that the guitar provided. It’s also more versatile than
he expected, with open chords with a powerful bottom end or slide sounds
or he can capo it high on the neck for fingerpicking. Since then, he’s
added a chunk of washboard and a pickup to it. The songs that came out
of writing on that guitar had a grit and honesty and heart to them and
Lorenz began to realize that this was a new project, separate from his
former band Rusty Belle. “I’m attracted to music as another aspect of
life, not as a fine art, something that you do to survive because you
have to.”
Though the
instruments have developed and several have broke, it began to solidify
when he found a double-wide suitcase at a tag sale which is now both the
bass drum and throne. “How much noise can I make as 1 person without
looping?” Both out of financial necessity and out of aesthetic choice,
he began to assemble other found items for percussion. “I’d much rather
find a thing that’s more or less itself and beat the hell out of it.
Plus, it forces you to be on the edge of your skills. I would add a new
thing and then learn a new skill and, in the process, make some
interesting mistakes.”
He explains
the rest of the kit, “My right toe plays high hat. It’s the most nuanced
thing about the drum set. On the right toe, is a box filled with
silverware, a bottom cymbal which is an old wooden cheese box, and a top
cymbal which an eight millimeter film reel. If I stomp the pedal, I get
a dark, crunchy sound. My left foot plays a baby shoe [his own] hitting
a gas can. I’ve got some galvanized heating duct material that I
hammered flat. This one might be the end of the baby shoe. On my left
heel is a stainless steel cook pot. I built that on tour down in WV and
it’s got a nice pop to it. I built it onto old chair parts. Just a pot.
The last thing on my left heel is a circular saw blade, which I use like
a crash.”
Add to that
his technique of Indian-inspired throat singing, which allows him to
“solo” by singing two tones at once, and a keyboard that he plays while
playing his guitar. Four amplifiers fill out the sound. He has two vocal
mics, one a Shure bullet-style mic going into a Vox amp. Two mid-50s
Gibson amps, a GA-20 and a Skylark, for both a clean and distorted sound
at the same time plus occasional tremolo. He doesn’t use effects
pedals, though. He found a two-octave Yamaha keyboard and ran a quarter
inch jack off the speaker as there’s no output. It goes into a small,
radio solid state amp.
For the
Suitcase Junket, aka Matt Lorenz, building and fixing and making stuff
is just part of life. “I was making my own freaking alcohol. Part of it
was this ideal of using what you find. We throw away too much in this
society. Why consume more when we already have more than enough?” He
pauses and grins, saying,“Aside from all of the sonic ideals and
idealistic thoughts, it was fun. I like making shit.”
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