An Interview with The 71's

Con­ver­sa­tion and Concert-​Going with The 71’s

Guest Con­trib­u­tor: Jen Broadwell

Hous­ton, TX rock out­fit The 71’s have a new LP out these days, enti­tled We Are Loco­mo­tive, but when I asked the guys how they decided to call it that, they had a hard time giv­ing me a defin­i­tive answer. At the end of the delib­er­a­tion, all I got was “because it plows over peo­ple.” Not a sur­pris­ing choice of words from a band mem­ber coined Tank. The band is com­prised of Tank on drums, his brother Jacob Lisenbe on bass, gui­tarist Ryan Cecil, and lead singer Kee­ton Coff­man. The rhythm sec­tion broth­ers joined forces with the other half of the group when Coff­man decided to move to Hous­ton drag­ging Cecil, his Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin class­mate, along with him. Painted white from head to toe, the four grace the cover of We Are Loco­mo­tive, enter­tain­ing their idea to avoid con­trast, unlike some forms of com­mon album art­work. Josh Moore, for­merly part of a band him­self, pro­duced the new album, some­times adding organ and piano.

I had a chance to see the band open up for Mechan­i­cal Boy and Elec­tric Touch at Ware­house Live on Fri­day, July 10^th, 2009. The 71’s imme­di­ately com­manded the stage with their enliven­ing sound, begin­ning with “Stretch Out Your Love,” a num­ber that deserved to be the opener, as it imme­di­ately dis­played the band’s energy. This song, along with Coff­man shout­ing “Is every­one ready?” (as he slowly slipped on his shades, despite the dark­ness of the venue) put an end to pre-​show audi­ence chat­ter. Fur­ther­more, with a break­down sur­round­ing the lyrics, “Come on, Come on Revolution/​that’s what I want,” it had the crowd engaged and clap­ping right off the bat.

The band’s seven-​song set included a cover of Tears for Fears’ “Every­body Wants To Rule The World” and a new song that is not on the cur­rent album. Again show­cas­ing the group’s inten­sity, “Love Slave” is a pow­er­ful song about want­ing pur­pose. The set ended with the encour­ag­ing “Start Again” — Coff­man aban­doned the stage to stand on the bar top dur­ing this clos­ing song about start­ing over and wash­ing away all the guilt stains of one’s past. I assumed that this song trig­gered the idea for the white-​washed album cover but Coff­man just replied with, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

It’s evi­dent that The 71’s have a bit too much edge to really be embraced by the con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian genre the group for­merly was part of. When I shared my obser­va­tion that Chris­t­ian music seems to span across any and all vari­eties, Coff­man informed me that even the big names tend to repli­cate their sec­u­lar influ­ences. There­fore, the orig­i­nal­ity of The 71’s also sets them apart.

Ini­tially, I saw The 71’s as a group fueled by a desire to be known, thus adopt­ing rock ‘n roll and lay­er­ing it with spir­i­tual lyrics. When I attempted to com­pli­ment their pro­mo­tional efforts, I was cor­rected. Coff­man doesn’t see a sep­a­ra­tion — the lyrics and the music feel the same to him. Fur­ther­more, Cecil added that their unin­tended tran­si­tion had to do with “us being happy in music.” The 71’s enjoy win­ning peo­ple over. They found more sat­is­fac­tion in play­ing clubs and mak­ing a hun­dred bucks a gig than play­ing for a “built-​in church audi­ence” mak­ing a thou­sand. They don’t want to cater to a lim­ited com­mu­nity. “Bor­ders don’t work. Be who you are. Accept it and don’t be afraid of it,” said Coffman.

With that being said, The 71’s do, on occa­sion, accept invi­ta­tions to attend youth groups and per­form for chil­dren. “I love it” was the sim­ple state­ment from Cecil in response to my ques­tion of how grat­i­fy­ing and reward­ing it is for The 71’s to play for the kids. He went on to say that their sat­is­fac­tion largely comes from hav­ing an oppor­tu­nity to offer them the “broad­ened expo­sure of a less seri­ous or somber sound.”

Cecil describes their over­all sound as “Foo Fight­ers meets Jet meets STP.” Elab­o­rat­ing, he com­pared The 71’s to the “energy of the Foo Fight­ers and the poppy-​rock of Jet.” As for Stone Tem­ple Pilots, he admir­ingly said, “STP is who I wish I could play like.” The 71’s obvi­ously draw influ­ences from Chris­t­ian artists as well, such as Audio Adren­a­line, Switch­foot, and The Elms. Lisenbe didn’t say much, but he chimed in here with, “I want to make-​out with The Elms” and Coff­man sec­onded his asser­tion. TANK added, “Well, I don’t want to make-​out with them so much as, maybe, play a show with them.”

The band’s recent music video for “Start Again” was filmed at a Wal-​Mart. Kee­ton is cer­tainly not muz­zled by one ounce of shy­ness, as he gal­li­vants through the isles dur­ing busi­ness hours singing his heart out. If you think that takes guts, just wait for the upcom­ing video of him rockin’ his way through the kitchen of a Chili’s restau­rant after hours.

The 71’s will play their next show at Fitzgerald’s on August 7^th, 2009. We Are Loco­mo­tive is avail­able on iTunes and at con­certs. Fur­ther­more, if you tune in to MTV’s “The Styl­ist” or “Keep­ing Up With The Kar­dashi­ans” on the E Chan­nel, keep an ear open for tracks from We Are Loco­mo­tive.

–
Media:
Music:
“Tomor­row Belongs To You“
“Higher Now
Pho­tos:
Ware­house Live Set (07÷10÷2009) — Cour­tesy of Barry Dolton

–
Jen Broad­well is a music blog­ger from Hous­ton, TX who runs the site Music Artiste. She enjoys attend­ing local show and writ­ing scene reviews and inter­views. She also enjoys indie fes­ti­vals and national indie shows and often posts her thoughts on such events, along with new music videos. Since her hobby doesn’t pay the bills. she works for the Uni­ver­sity of Hous­ton in Development.